MSC-RBF Status

76: Pass- Medium Risk

The snook fishery scored 60 – 80 in the MSC-RBF analysis, passing assessment with medium risk of stock damage. The Productivity Susceptibility Analysis indicated this species is moderately productive, maturing young with high fecundity but growing to a large size and living longer than 10 years. Snook are highly susceptible to capture and damage by the fishery. Catch and effort data show high overlap (> 30%) of the stock distribution with fishery effort. The risk of snook encountering troll gear is high, given their primary habitat is commonly fished (shallow reef, sand, and seagrass < 20 m). With no data available on the age/size/sex structure of catch, a default high risk score was given for this attribute. The Consequence Analysis showed the most recent CPUE data are substantially lower than the historical average, indicating some reduction in the population size of the stock and some likelihood of changes to the reproductive capacity and age/size/sex structure. Recruitment dynamics appear unaffected.

Productivity Attributes

Attribute	Score
Average age at maturity	1
Average maximum age	2
Fecundity	1
Average maximum size	2
Average size at maturity	2
Reproductive strategy	1
Trophic level	3

Susceptibility Attributes

Attribute	Score
Availability	3
Encounterability	3
Selectivity	3
Post-capture mortality	3

Consequence Analysis

Vulnerable Subcomponent(s)	Score
All	80