AtlanticTarpon_BananasandPineapples_Holt_Scott_PortAransasTX_11April2023_Reel4150.mp3

Scott Holt [00:00:00] One thing that we don't really know, you know, from historical data in Texas is whether this was ever an important nursery area. There's not a lot of records of tarpon there. There's some old, really good fishery surveys done here. One of the best ones is ... 1929 is the date of the publication. John Pearson, he worked for the federal fisheries people. So, he did a really extensive survey of fish up and down the Texas coast. And ... juvenile tarpon are not an important part of the fish that he surveyed even back at that time.

Scott Holt [00:00:48] So it's not clear that Texas was ever a important nursery area.

Scott Holt [00:00:55] A lot of people point to the construction of dams and cutting off fresh water that's coming into the coast. But the juveniles are really tolerant of bad water conditions. So it seems to me, and it's just my personal opinion, that cutting off freshwater from the lakes and rivers would not ruin the habitat for small tarpon. I mean, it might even make it better because there's less competition in those, that bad water condition.

Scott Holt [00:01:26] But, in Mexico, we know that's an important nursery area. And if they've changed the nursery conditions there, that certainly could be a source of the decline...

Scott Holt [00:01:40] The problem that the Mexican scientists were talking about was water quality. You know, cutting down the forest and putting in pineapples and bananas. And they used a lot of herbicides and pesticides. The water quality, in terms of clarity, would change because of all the sediment...

Scott Holt [00:02:04] I mean, those are just anecdotal things we were hearing from the scientists, but it sounded to me like they were convinced that the quality of the nursery habitat had declined substantially over the, you know, 40, 50 years.