386 S. Lovell et al.


TABLE 1 Reasons cited for species decline or increase (number of people citing reason), including recent increases, with illustrative example responses.


Reason (n)


Decline Volcano (41)


Overfishing (35) Hurricanes (14) Habitat loss (10)


Poor management (6) Sedimentation (6)


Water quality (3)


Increase Legislation (16)


Reduced fishing (11) Enforcement (2)


Example response (location, interviewee age)


I would give [coral cover] a percentage, we have about 40% of the corals we used to have. It was all the volcano...the ash definitely took out loads of coral. (Montserrat, 56)


When it comes to mating, [grouper] congregate, so people used to go out&take a whole breeding amount of them. (Barbuda, 42)


I used to see many [parrotfish] in terminal phase, but they were a casualty of the hurricanes...the first big hurricane was Hugo in 1989,& parrotfish washed up along the shore along with other fish. (Barbuda, 55)


The parrotfish have lost their habitat...everywhere there used to be parrotfish...you couldn’t go snor- keling without seeing a ton of them. (Montserrat, 33)


Lack of enforcement of regulations by officials. [referring to lobster decline] (Antigua, 46)


Sedimentation is also a huge issue, especially in areas with storm damage. The [coral] species currently there get majorly damaged in large storms. (Montserrat, 45)


The decline in sharks is associated with declining water quality. The beaches right off the lagoon are spawning areas for sharks, with bad water quality you will have less fish & less shark. (Barbuda, 55)


Parrotfish were first banned the year before last because people saw the populations were depleted, now the populations have risen a lot. (Antigua, 64)


Cultural shift/ecotourism (15) People respect them [the turtles]...even if it was in season &I could legally catch a turtle, I wouldn’t. The tourists would not take it too nicely. (Montserrat)


You have less fishing for sharks now...some folks used to go out for sharks. Nowthat is only occasionally. (Montserrat, 45)


Things have been looking up. Grouper season is closed right now. We work hard to have enforcement. (Barbuda, 42)


Fig. 1). Perceived causes of declines in species abundance included overfishing, hurricanes and poor enforcement of fisheries rules (Table 1, Supplementary Fig. 2). The most fre- quently cited reason for species decline onMontserratwas the 1995 Soufriére Hills volcanic eruption, whereas interviewees from Barbuda and Antigua most often cited overfishing. In total 21 taxa were identified as increasing by at least


one interviewee (Supplementary Table 2), including six of the 10 taxa of interest and 15 additional taxa. Individual in- terviewees cited amedian of 1.75 taxa (range 0–4) as increas- ing. Turtles were most frequently cited as increasing, and were the only taxon that had significantly higher mean per- ceived abundance rankings in January 2016 compared to 20 years earlier, increasing from 3.38 to 3.99 (F(2,92)= 5.56,


P.0.01; Fig. 1). Additionally, five taxa (lobster, grouper, parrotfish, snapper and conch) were described by at least one interviewee as declining overall, but experiencing a re- cent increase in the last 5 years (Supplementary Table 2). Increases were most frequently attributed to conservation legislation, which was cited a total of 16 times as a reason for increase in populations of grouper, parrotfish, lobster, conch and turtle. Recent legislation includes implementing closed seasons for fishing on Antigua and Barbuda, species protections and marine reserves on Barbuda, and closed seasons for hunting turtles on all three islands. In addition to changes in abundance, interviewees de-


scribed changes over time in species composition, catch per unit effort, and target species’ sizes (Table 2). Fishers


TABLE 2 Examples of interviewee perceptions (number of people with perception) of changes in the marine environment. Perceived change (n)


Example response (location, interviewee age) Loss of large predators (7) Change in size of target species (12)


Need for increased effort & more advanced technology (7)


[Spanish Point] was massively different [when I was younger]. Children would go down & shoot decent sized fish day after day. Now you only see...the smaller fish, not the big predatory fish anymore. Now you see the coneys, the small reef fish, you don’t really see the big grouper at all anymore. (Antigua, 45)


You just would not believe the size of the fish we used to get here. (Montserrat, 56)


I used to come in by midday&havemy total catch. Nowit takes more hours to catch whatwe used to catch. I need to use different gear & go to different locations. (Barbuda, 56)


Depletion of nearshore fishing grounds (7) I used to free dive for a long time & [grouper] were always in the shallows, now they have moved out into deeper waters. (Barbuda, 26)


Oryx, 2020, 54(3), 383–391 © 2018 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318000169


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