180 
Fishery Bulletin 120(2) 
VPS site within 3 d post-release, and 2 additional fish 
(3%) did not move after exiting their release cage. Data 
for these 7 individuals were removed from all analyses. 
The remaining individuals (n=49, 88%) were categorized 
as active, caught, emigrated, or deceased, and data for 
them were included in all subsequent estimates of 
mortality. 
Movement patterns of gray triggerfish that remained 
after the 3-d recovery period (n=49) were monitored for 
4-622 d. Among these tracked individuals, 30 fish had a 
final status of emigrated, 4 fish were caught by fishermen, 
4 fish died of natural causes, and 11 fish were active when 
either their transmitter battery failed (n=8) or the study 
period ended (n=3) (Fig. 2). These fish were considered 
me 
SS a ee ee IV 
MBE 
IE 
1E 
Mme st) | 
mE 
SS Saas) | ||| 
EB IIE 
[1/ mm Wt WitR 
__ a] R 
(i 
aM 
IE 
IME 
JMMJSNJIMMJISNJIMMJISNJIMMJISNJIMMIJS 
2013 2014 
2015 2016 2017 
Time at liberty (month and year) 
Figure 2 
Duration of detections of 49 gray triggerfish (Balistes capriscus) (black bars) tagged with transmit- 
ters and tracked at artificial reef sites in the northern Gulf of Mexico from January 2013 through 
September 2017. Letters at the end of the bars denote the final fate of fish at sites where a Vemco 
Positioning System (VPS) was deployed: emigrated (E), fishing mortality (F), natural mortality (M), 
unknown (U), active as of the end of the study on 5 September 2017 (A), and resident at VPS site 
when transmitter battery failed (R). 
