All Hands on Deck: Local Ecological Knowledge and Expert Volunteers Contribute to the First Delisting of a Marine Fish Species Under the Endangered Species Act

Abstract

The listing of three species of rockfish ('Sebastes' spp.) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 2010 motivated the development of a cooperative research program between government agencies and the local recreational fishing and SCUBA diving communities of Puget Sound (PS), WA, USA. This program has examined rockfish life history characteristics, movement behavior, young-of-year recruitment and the population responses to fishing in PS. Of most significance has been the involvement of the recreational fishing community in testing whether the three ESA-listed rockfish populations in PS were genetically discrete from populations outside of PS. There was considerable uncertainty in the answer to this question during the original ESA listing process due to limited data on these three species in PS. We used the knowledge and expert angling skills of the fishing community to locate these rare species and non-lethally collect tissue samples for genetic analyses. Results showed that yelloweye rockfish ('S. ruberrimus') was genetically differentiated between PS and the outer coast, but the boundaries of the population were different than previously assumed. In contrast, canary rockfish ('S. pinniger') was genetically similar across PS and the outer coast. Federal managers used these results to expand the ESA-listed boundaries of yelloweye rockfish and to delist canary rockfish – the first delisting of a marine fish species from the ESA. The knowledge and angling expertise of the Puget Sound recreational fishing community were directly responsible for the successful collection of data to test hypotheses that resulted in very specific management decisions.

Keywords

• rockfish
• adaptive management
• recreational fishing
• population structure
• puget sound
• citizen science