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West African Goliath Groupers: Where are they between Senegal and Angola?
Version 1
: Received: 27 April 2023 / Approved: 28 April 2023 / Online: 28 April 2023 (05:18:39 CEST)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Barreiros, J.P.; Coleman, F.C. West African Goliath Grouper: Where Are They between Senegal and Angola? Fishes 2023, 8, 318. Barreiros, J.P.; Coleman, F.C. West African Goliath Grouper: Where Are They between Senegal and Angola? Fishes 2023, 8, 318.
Abstract
The Atlantic Goliath Grouper Epinephelus itajara (Lichtenstein, 1822) is thought to occur on both sides of the Atlantic, from the Carolinas (USA) to Brazil in the western Atlantic, and from North Senegal to North Angola off West Africa in the eastern Atlantic. While there are fairly good data on their distribution in the western Atlantic, genetic verification of species status, confirmed occurrences, population status, fishing reports, and trade data are almost non-existent off West Africa. Part of the problem is that tropical West African countries lack a network of marine reserves that might protect this species. Add to this destruction of mangrove forests and other coastal habitats on which the species depends when in the post-larval and juvenile stages coupled heavy pollution and intense overfishing and it becomes clear that their survival is deeply threatened. The focus of this paper is to describe all of the known historical data and examine all current data to better evaluate their present status.
Keywords
Atlantic Goliath Grouper; Epinephelus itajara; extinction; overfishing; marine protected areas; monitoring
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Life Sciences
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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