Centro de Convenciones Dr. Pedro J. Rosselló HORA ... - La Regata

18
| Año 2011, núm. 8
Dolphinfish Research Program Expanding in Puerto Rico
That’s right anglers’, it’s that time of year
again, dorado season! As this time, the earliest
arrivals to Puerto Rico’s waters are traversing
westward off the north coast fulfi lling a
portion of their annual thousand mile
plus migration. While most of the islands’
fi sherman understood dorado generally
move westward off PR, it wasn’t until a team
of dedicated recreational and sport fi sherman
began tagging and releasing dorado off
San Juan that evidence of a westward trend
began to emerge with recaptures reported
off Arecibo and the north coast of the
Dominican Republic.
This work is being conducted in conjunction
with the Dolphinfi sh Research Program
(DRP), founded by Don Hammond in 2006, to
establish the temporal and spatial occurrence,
movement patterns and essential habitat of
dolphinfi sh occurring in the western North
Atlantic. Now, the program is expanding
a new team in PR working to integrate
information obtained from different methods
to further investigate dolphinfi sh population
structure, local and regional movements, and
water column behavior.
This research is being
headed by Wessley Merten,
a doctoral candidate of
marine sciences at the
University of Puerto Rico,
Captain Manuel Botello
with his crew aboard
Missing Angel, and Captain
Mickey Amador of La
Parguera Fishing Charters
with his crew aboard the
Marejá. However, the
success of this effort relies on the acquisition
of a dditional funding and support from the
sport fi shing industry,
organizations, and
marinas, as well as new
recruits of interested
recreational and sport
fi sherman to aid in the
tagging effort.
The PR team is part of
a consortium of over
1,800 anglers whose
participation has
amounted in more than
13,000 tagged dolphinfi sh and 390 reported
recaptures. Of the 390 recaptures, 6 have
occurred in Puerto Rico, with one arriving to
the island after being tagged off Islamorada,
Florida, in July of 2006 and recaptured 246
days later off Guanica. The other recaptures
have been dispersal movements from San
Juan moving northwest 383 miles in 88 days,
southwest 57 miles in 8 days, northwest 16
miles in 7 days, and southwest 14 miles in
10 days.
The most recent recapture was from a fi sh
tagged off Salinas and recaptured 4 days
later off La Parguera
after traversing 73 miles.
Additionally, the team
is using pop-off satellite
archival transmitters
(PSATs) to investigate
dolphinfi sh movements
and water column
behavior. Last April, a
43 inch bull was tagged
and released with a PSAT
off La Parguera which
traveled 251 miles southwest to a location
157 miles south of Hispaniola after 30 days.
Results indicate that the
fi sh remained at the surface
(0-10 meters) for 78% of
that time. The other 22%
was spent diving as deep as
111 meters with maximum
dive times of up to 4 hours
in duration. Furthermore,
these data show that the fi sh
never dove deeper than 30
m during the day (0900
- 1500) and longer
than 60 minutes. Dives
deeper than 60 m and
longer than an hour
were conducted during
the night (2100 - 0300).
Plans call for more
satellite tags to
be deployed on
dolphinfi sh within the
Caribbean to further
describe differences
between regions and gain more insight
into the life history of dolphinfi sh. When
this effort is combined with a continually
strong conventional tagging effort, overall
movement patterns, trends, and pathways can
be revealed.
For more information about how to get
involved in the research and to acquire a
tagging kit, contact Wessley Merten at wessley.
merten@upr.edu or call (787) 436-8300. For
more information about the DRP program
being conducted out or Puerto Rico and to
see an animation of the actual movements of
the dolphinfi sh tagged last spring visit www.
dolphintaggingpr.com.
DRNA EXIME TEMPORALMENTE DEL
REQUISITO DE CERTIFICACIÓN DE
NO DEUDA PARA LA TRAMITACIÓN
DE LICENCIAS DE PESCA
San Juan, PR – El Secretario del Departamento de
Recursos Naturales y Ambientales (DRNA), Daniel
J. Galán Kercadó autorizó a la Ofi cina de Permisos y
Licencias Forestales, Vida Silvestre y Pesquerías a eximir
temporalmente del requisito de Certifi cación de No
Deuda para la tramitación de licencias de pesca, hasta
tanto se establezca el nuevo sistema de facturación y
cobros.
Actualmente el DRNA está elaborando un nuevo
sistema de facturación y cobros, debido a que la
División de Facturación y Cobros no cuenta con un
sistema que permita identifi car de manera expedita,
si un pescador posee una deuda con el DRNA, lo cual
atrasa signifi cativamente el proceso de emisión de
licencias de pesca.
“No queremos penalizar a los pescadores que vienen a
tramitar sus licencias de pesca teniendo que esperar por
la certifi cación de no deuda por lo que hemos eximido
temporalmente este requisito”, señaló el Secretario.
Una vez esté instalado el nuevo sistema de facturación y
cobros se procederá a requerir la certifi cación.