Proceedings of the 66 th Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute November 4 – 8, 2013 Corpus Christi, Texas USA Projeto Meros Do Brasil Photo-ID: First Insights of Goliath Grouper (Epinephelus itajara, Epinephelidae) Population and Movements at Fernando de Noronha National Marine Park Projeto Meros Do Brasil Foto-ID: Primeras Ideas de Población y Movimientos del Mero Guasa (Epinephelus itajara, Epinephelidae) en el Parque Nacional Marino Fernando de Noronha Projeto Meros Do Brasil Photo-ID: Les Premiers Aperçus de Population et des Mouvements du Mérou (Epinephelus itajara, Epinephelidae) au Parc National Marine Fernando de Noronha ÁTHILA BERTONCINI 1 *, VINÍCIUS GIGLIO 2 , JOHNATAS ALVES 3 , ALICE GROSSMAN 4 , ZAIRA MATHEUS 4 and BEATRICE FERREIRA 6 * 1 Laboratório de Ictiologia Teórica e Aplicada (LICTA), Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – UNIRIO, CCET/IBIO - Av. Pasteur, 458 - Urca – RJ 22290-240 Brazil. athilapeixe@gmail.com. 2 Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação da Biodiversi, Ilhéus, BA Brazil. 3 Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Programa de Pós-Graduação em SistemasAquáticos Tropicais, Ilhéus BA Brazil. 4 All Angle Fernando de Noronha PE Brazil. 5 Universidade Federal de Pernambuco Departamento de Oceanografia Recife PE Brazil. ABSTRACT Photo-identification (photo-iD) is a widely utilized approach on a variety of marine species including marine mammals, sea turtles and cartilaginous fish, providing a single non-invasive mark-recapture technique, which is critical for threatened species such as the goliath grouper, Epinephelus itajara. Photographic records came from the Participative Survey Program of Projeto Meros do Brasil and from photo/video companies. Recognition of individual animals, used natural marks, mainly spots over the head of the GG. The free computer-aided photo-identification I3S was used, although some manual inspection of the photo database was needed. The offshore archipelago of Fernando de Noronha (National Marine Park), located 186nm off northeastern Brazil (03°50′ S, 32°25′ W), provided the most important data that allowed long time analyses, between April 2004 and May 2013, where six different GG were registered in 84 different days. Results showed that goliath groupers were observed at 11 different dive sites. From April 2004 to November 2006, four different goliath groupers were in the area, disappearing in the following years, where the fifth specimen was observed from December 2007 to January 2012, being then replaced by the sixth specimen in October 2012, registered for the last time in May 2013. Caverna da Sapata and Ilha do Meio where the most visited places by the fifth specimen along 50 months, which also migrated distances of 11km within a maximum of four days, between these sites. The Project intends to start a telemetry tagging study to refine the information on a well-known spawning area in south Brazil. KEY WORDS: Fish behavior, endangered species, mark-recapture, grouper, South Atlantic INTRODUCTION Photo-identification (photo-iD) is a widely utilized approach on a variety of marine species including marine mammals, sea turtles and cartilaginous fish, providing a single non-invasive mark-recapture technique, which is critical for threatened species such as the goliath grouper, Epinephelus itajara. The goliath grouper is the largest grouper in the Atlantic Ocean (> 2 m total length - TL, > 400 Kg) (Bullock et al. 1992). GG are sedentary and have a high degree of site fidelity, performing yearly spawning migrations (Eklund and Schull 2001, Pina-Amargós and Gonzáles-Sansón 2009). Adults inhabit both natural and artificial reefs, generally in depths less than 50 m (Bullock et al. 1992), while juveniles are often observed in mangrove (nursery) areas. Since 2002, goliath groupers are being studied in Brazil by Meros do Brasil Project (www.merosdobrasil.org), representing the first Brazilian initiative toward the study of spawning aggregations of reeffish along the Brazilian coast, as well as other broaden aspects of its biology associated to the conservation of coastal marine habitats. Since the species is considered Critically Endangered by the IUCN, as well as, the first fish species that had a moratori- um in Brazil, Meros do Brasil Project’s research themes involve: articulation with local knowledge from fisheries commu- nities (Gerhardinger et al. 2006), institutional governance, public policy, environmental education, monitoring of catches and gathering of biological samples, genetics (Benevides et al. 2014), aquaculture, interaction with fisheries, conservation of associated environments, spawning aggregations (Leite et al. 2010, Carvalho 2012, Bueno et al., In press), mark- recapture inside estuaries and reefs, and photo identification, which is the focus of this article. CHOOSING THE STUDY AREA Previous investigations on habitat use and abundance of goliath groupers in Brazil from a participative survey - which engaged volunteer divers in data-collection (see Giglio et al., In press) - provided the first clue to focus efforts on photo iD research. According to Giglio et al. (In press), 17% of sightings came from Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, a National Marine Park (Fernando de Noronha NMP – Figure 1), which was then chosen to be studied. The offshore archipelago is