464 
Fishery Bulletin 11 5(4) 
Map of the 7 geographic zones used to determine large-scale and seasonal move¬ 
ments of cobia (Rachycentron canadum) tagged and recaptured in the Gulf of Mex¬ 
ico and South Atlantic Ocean during 1988-2014. The 7 zones are Texas (TX), Loui¬ 
siana (LA), northcentral Gulf of Mexico (NcGOM), Florida panhandle (FLPH), Flor¬ 
ida Gulf Coast (FLGC), Florida Keys (FLK), and the South Atlantic Ocean (ATL). 
Program MARK, vers 7.2 (Brownie 
et ah, 1985; White and Burnam, 
1999). The tag-recovery model is 
based on the probability that a 
tagged individual will experience 
one of the following 3 events: it will 
survive to the next year; be harvest¬ 
ed by an angler and reported; or it 
will die of natural causes or be har¬ 
vested and not reported (Fig. 2). In 
this analysis, maximum likelihood 
was used to estimate 2 parameters 
in the tag-recovery model: survivor¬ 
ship to the next year (S) and the 
probability of tag recovery (/). The 
f parameter is the joint probabil¬ 
ity that a tagged cobia will be re¬ 
captured, harvested, and reported. 
In all candidate models, an annual 
time-step was used (n=27 years). 
We assume that all tagged individu¬ 
als had an equal probability of be¬ 
ing recaptured, and that tagging 
occurs instantaneously during the 
designated time interval. The suite 
of models we evaluated included 
all combinations of time-dependent 
(t) and time-independent (.) survi- 
Figure 2 
Conceptual diagram of the Brownie et al. (1985) tag-recovery model used to 
estimate instantaneous total mortality of cobia (Rachycentron canadum) in 
the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic Ocean, with 2 parameters, for survi¬ 
vorship (S) and probability of tag recovery (/). 
