Long-term fisheries monitoring and restoration in Charlotte Harbor - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Long-term fisheries monitoring and restoration in Charlotte Harbor

David Blewett, Courtney Saari, Philip Stevens, and Tim MacDonald

Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Fish and Wildlife Research Institute

Northern Indian River Lagoon 1990 Southern Indian River Lagoon 1997 Florida Keys 1998 Charlotte Harbor 1989 Tampa Bay 1989 Cedar Key 1996 Apalachicola 1997

FWC Fisheries-Independent Monitoring (FIM) Field Labs

• St. Johns River

2001 Choctawhatchee Bay & Santa Rosa Sound 1992 - 1997 Charlotte Harbor crew

Typical annual fish sampling distribution

Random sampling design Over 100 sampling sites per month Record data on all fishes and selected invertebrates, habitat, and physio- chemical conditions *Over 50 published studies in the last 10 years

21-m center-bag seine (3-mm mesh) 6-m otter trawl (3-mm mesh cod-end liner)

Small fish sampling

Shallow bay sets (flats and shorelines) Deep bay and river (>1.7 m) Rivers and tidal creeks

Example of small fish sample

Large fish sampling along shorelines –183 m seine

Example of large fish sample

Long-term trends in sport fish abundance Relative abundance of common snook collected in 183 m haul seines (1996 – 2014)

Our program directives:

Track abundance of fish in Florida’s estuaries Determine the effects of regulations Pinpoint essential fish habitat Investigate effects of variable freshwater inflow (Pre- and post-monitoring of restoration and disturbances)

Photo by Jamie Darrow

FWC Charlotte Harbor Field Laboratory Science Publications

Pre- and post- disturbance

Grant funding for the Blind Pass reopening project helped to increase our sampling efforts in and around Blind Pass

Recently started sampling tidal creeks in Charlotte Harbor (2014 – present)

Prior to 2014 – Tidal creeks were not a large part of our standard monthly sampling

Historic Seine Samples (20 years of data)

All bay, backwater, and river seine samples (n=11,368)

Developed a sampling program to collect larger juvenile snook in Charlotte Harbor to aid Snook Stock Assessment needs – 2014 (extended our river seine sampling to creeks)

Upper Charlotte Harbor

Adding age-1 snook abundance to compliment our adult snook data and to add a predictive measure for estimating stocks in the future

Coral Creek

Catfish Creek Whidden Creek

Phase 2 Phase 1

Rotonda

Phase 3

Cape Haze

Coral Creek Restoration - SWFWMD

Fisheries monitoring for pre-restoration of Coral Creek (June 2014 – July 2015) Partners - CHNEP , SWFWMD, DEP , Charlotte Co. DRP

Coral Creek

Two reference creeks

Cape Haze Upper Charlotte Harbor

Coral Creek Restoration Sampling

Coral Creek Study – Pre-restoration

ANOSIM R=0.33; P=0.001

MDS plot - circles represent 56% similarity

Catfish Whidden Lower-Coral East-Coral West-Coral

2D Stress: 0

Differences in fish assemblages – 2 distinct groups emerge

Coral Creek Study

Species differences

East-Coral, Catfish, and Whidden - more Rainwater Killifish, Silversides, Goldspotted Killifish, Pink Shrimp Lower- and West-Coral - more Bay Anchovy, Tidewater Mojarra, Clown Goby, Silver Jenny, Striped Mojarra, Redfin Needlefish SIMPER

Coral Creek Study

East Coral, Catfish, and Whidden creeks

• Wide and shallow systems with abundant seagrass
• Backwater marsh/seagrass species assemblage

West and Lower Coral Creek

• West – wide and shallow, lacks seagrass
• Lower – wide and shallow with deeper channelization
• Upper Harbor creek species assemblage

Peace River Myakka River

Charlotte Harbor

Tributary Sampling - over 25 different creeks

2016 - present

Alligator Two Pines Bear Yucca Pens Durden Winegourd Zemel Silcox (north and south) Study Creeks = Yellow Reference Creeks = Blue Great potential for doing a pre- and post- restoration study along the eastern shoreline Collect baseline fisheries, habitat, and water condition data Possibly six creeks impacted by the Flatwoods Hydrological Restoration

Alligator Two Pines Bear Yucca Pens Durden Winegourd Zemel Silcox (north and south) Study Creeks = Yellow Reference Creeks = Blue

Uneven monthly sampling effort in the all other tidal creeks (10 samples per zone, 3 zones) Sampling in Alligator Creek is similar to our rivers (4 samples per month)

Number of seine samples collected in eastern Charlotte Harbor tidal creeks during Fisheries-Independent Monitoring (FIM) sampling during 2017

Creeks Study/ Reference January February March April May June July August September October November December FIM Total Alligator (mainstem) Study 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 24 Alligator (tributaries)Study 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 24 Zemel Canal Study 3 2 1 1 1 2 3 3 1 17 Bear Branch Study 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 14 Yucca Pens Study 1 1 1 4 1 3 2 2 2 2 19 Durden Study 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 2 14 Two Pines Study 2 2 2 1 2 2 3 3 1 1 2 21 North Silcox Reference 1 1 1 2 1 4 1 11 South Silcox Reference 2 1 3 Winegourd Reference 2 1 1 1 5 Total 14 11 12 15 11 10 11 14 14 15 12 13 152

General locations of sampling sites in 2018 Winegourd Creek, n=8

Yucca Pens, n=11 Durden Creek, n=17 General locations of sampling sites in 2018

Number of seine samples Tidal Creek Study/ Reference State Funded Grant Funded Total Number Alligator (mainstem) Study 24 24 Alligator (tributaries) Study 24 24 Zemel Canal Study 13 11 24 Bear Branch Study 14 10 24 Yucca Pens Study 16 8 24 Durden Study 14 10 24 Two Pines Study 19 5 24 North Silcox Reference 9 15 24 South Silcox Reference 3 21 24 Winegourd Reference 5 19 24

141 99 240

• approx. 60%
• approx. 40%

100%

Proposed sampling effort for the CH Flatwoods Initiative pre-restoration monitoring of fishes in 9 tidal creeks of the Charlotte Harbor estuary.

Also, uniform quarterly sampling may be another option to explore, which could bring grant costs down even further

• Balanced monthly approach
• Creek specific information for fishes

Any questions/discussion?

Snook Redfish N=544 N=351

504 seine samples

Some preliminary results (just 1 year of data)

Juvenile Redfish are more abundant in Myakka Cutoff creeks and in the Peace and Myakka rivers (Red) Whereas, juvenile Snook are more abundant in Cape Haze and Southeast Wall creeks (Blue) Myakka Cutoff West Wall Alligator Creek NE Wall SE Wall E Cape Haze W Cape Peace River Myakka River W Cape Haze

Juvenile sport fish abundance in rivers and tidal creeks

Young-of-the-Year (10-99 mm SL)

Region

M y a k k a P e a c e M C u t

• f

f A l l i g a t

• r

W W a l l N E S E E C a p e W C a p e

Mean abundance (fish/100m2)

1 2 3 4

• Approx. Age 1

(100-300 mm SL)

Region

M y a k k a P e a c e M C u t

• f

f A l l i g a t

• r

W W a l l N E S E E C a p e W C a p e 1 2 3

Common Snook

Young-of-the-Year (10-99 mm SL)

Region

M y a k k a P e a c e M C u t

• f

f A l l i g a t

• r

W W a l l N E S E E C a p e W C a p e

Mean abundance (fish/100m2)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

• Approx. Age 1

(100-300 mm SL)

Region

M y a k k a P e a c e M C u t

• f

f A l l i g a t

• r

W W a l l N E S E E C a p e W C a p e 0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15

Red Drum

Rivers Gulf passes Rivers Gulf passes