ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Conservation and Sustainability
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1567714
This article is part of the Research TopicManagement of marine living resources: How can area-based management tools (ABMTs) such as MPAs and OECMs benefit fish stocks and blue food productionView all 3 articles
Examining the impacts of spatial closures in the Gulf Menhaden fishery Running Head: Gulf Menhaden Spatial Closures
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, United States
- 2NOAA Fisheries, Beaufort, United States
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Policymakers in the northern Gulf of Mexico have suggested various spatial closures in recent years to restrict access in managing the Gulf Menhaden Brevoortia patronus fishery sustainably.In this work, we aim to understand how the seasonal movement of the stock will impact the efficacy of spatial restrictions by examining the short-term impacts of simulated area closures of 1.6, 3.2, and 4.8 km adjacent to land on the commercial Gulf Menhaden fishery using commercial logbook data from 2006 to 2009 and 2011. We used bootstrap resampling (n = 1,000) of trip-level data to describe five descriptive metrics. These were the mean setspecific catch per unit effort (CPUE, metric tons, mt set -1 ), the mean number of sets deployed on each trip, the mean trip-specific CPUE (mt minute -1 ), the median distance (km) traveled to the first set, and the median distance (km) traveled among subsequent sets (for trips with at least two sets). We explored the impacts of closures by comparing the month-specific distributions of the descriptive metrics from all trips to those calculated using only those trips with all sets outside of a particular restricted area. Using the simulation, we evaluated the resulting spatial differences in fishing effort that would occur. The results of the simulation indicated that, in all restriction scenarios for all months, the spatial restrictions served to increase the travel distance to the first set and to reduce the mean number of sets taken. Set-specific and trip-specific CPUE are reduced in the restriction scenarios. We found that the reduction of total harvest (mt) for the 1.6 km restriction regime was 4.3 to 7.2%, 9.1 to 12.0% in the 3.2 km restriction regime, and 12.7 to 15.4% in the 4.8 km restriction regime. This work provides information about the impacts on the fishery that result from area closures. Such information is necessary to evaluate the efficacy and impacts of spatial closures for the Gulf Menhaden fishery.
Keywords: Movement (Author's Keywords), Management trade-offs, Gulf menhaden, Spatial restrictions, Simulation modal
Received: 27 Jan 2025; Accepted: 05 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Leaf, Wu, Mroch, Trigg and Duval. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Robert Leaf, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, United States
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