Recreational fishing is responsible for 23% of the harvest of overfished stocks in the United States, over 60% in the Gulf of Mexico. Both the Pew Oceans Report and the U. S. Commission on Ocean Policy Report identified overfishing as a serious problem for the health of the seas. Read the article from Science with letters to the editor from recreational fishing groups and from fishery scientists with our responses.
We routinely work closely with commercial and recreational fishermen in the offshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico and have developed bioeconomic models of fishermen's behavior relative to marine protected areas.
Farewell to John Roberts
Investigations of fish populations, community structure, habitat, and geology of west Florida shelf and Atlantic coast shelf-edge reefs. This site is still under construction.
Our research lab has been studying grouper for the last 15 years. These species share many life history characteristics, some of which make them vulnerable to rapid overexploitation. We find also that their overall behaviors differ markedly from one another, making them particularly interesting to study. On the sites below are provided.