Atlantic tarpon

How it lives

Tarpon spawn at sea in aggregations. The young begin as slender, ribbon-shaped larvae called leptocephali. In a study off Mississippi, larvae were 22 to 43 days old. Juveniles move into shallow backwaters, sometimes with very little oxygen, which many predators avoid. At about three years they move to nearshore habitats, and at about eight years they mature. They prefer water of about 22 to 28 C (72 to 82 F), become inactive below about 16 C (61 F), and can breathe air at the surface. The oldest reported age is 55 years.

Where it goes

Tarpon can make long migrations of hundreds of kilometres, but some stay resident in estuaries and coastal habitats. Tagging in the northern Gulf of Mexico found fish tagged west of the Mississippi River Delta moving south in autumn and winter, and fish tagged east of it moving towards Florida, which suggests two separate groups (18 of 44 tagged fish were detected). Adults gather to spawn offshore. I did not find movement studies for Cuba, so how far tarpon move around Jardines de la Reina is not known to me.

We only draw a journey on the map when scientists have tracked it or clearly documented it. For this animal we have not found one yet.

Populations

The Atlantic tarpon ranges on both sides of the Atlantic: in the west through the Gulf of Mexico, Florida and the West Indies, and in the east from Senegal to the Congo. The IUCN lists it as Vulnerable (listed 2019, assessed 2018, criterion A2bd). FishBase rates its resilience as low (population doubling time 4.5 to 14 years) and its vulnerability to fishing as very high (76 out of 100). Tarpon cross national borders, which makes management harder. In Florida and Alabama a special permit is needed to keep one, so most angling there is catch and release, and Wikipedia notes that only catch and release fly-fishing is allowed in Jardines de la Reina national park. I did not find a global population count in the sources I opened.