Yellowtail Snapper

A fisher from the Utila Cays small-scale fishery in Honduras hooks a yellowtail snapper (Ocyurus chrysurus). This is an important species in both the small-scale and industrial fisheries of Honduras and throughout the fish’s distribution, from the southern United States, the wider Caribbean and Brazil. Canty led a team of scientists who worked with local fishers in Honduras to collect yellowtail snapper from their daily catches, either going on fishing excursions with them, or taking samples if the fisher was able to supply the GPS coordinates of the fishing ground where they had caught their fish. The newly published study analyzed three different forensic tools to test their ability to determine where a fish had been caught within small spatial distances, 5–60 kilometers.

Photo courtesy International League of Conservation Photographers / Claudio Contreras-Koob