Immortalized by legend yet pushed to the precipice by the relentlessdemands of a progressing society adult bumphead parrotfish, or atuhung in chamoru, arehighly gregarious creatures which spend much…

This $650,878 Project Grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service, Region 1 under the Competitive State Wildlife Grant (C-SWG) Program (CFDA 15.634). The grant funds a four-year collaborative research project between the Guam Department of Agriculture's Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources (GDAWR) and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB).

The key objectives of the project are to: i) bring Bumphead Parrotfish (locally known as Atuhung) to Guam, ii) use acoustic telemetry technology to study the movement patterns and habitat use of Atuhung, and iii) train Guam's citizenry in the research techniques. The project aims to fill critical data gaps identified in Guam's Wildlife Action Plan to support more effective conservation strategies for this species of greatest conservation need. The research will also evaluate the efficacy of existing policies like the scuba spear fishing ban and marine protected areas in Guam.

Immortalized by legend yet pushed to the precipice by the relentlessdemands of a progressing society adult bumphead parrotfish, or atuhung in chamoru, arehighly gregarious creatures which spend much of the day roaming about in search of food, devouring corals and macroalgae as if a herd of bison had just descended upon a coral reef andyet, like clockwork, bumpheads habitually return to specific areas to sleep at night (aswani hamilton, 2004). Unfortunately for them studies reveal that fish that behave so predictably, oftenfall victim to overfishing, especially when exhibited by one as large and conspicuous asbolbometopon muricatum, which continues to rest atop the guam wildlife action plan list ofmarine species of greatest conservation need (C1 gdawr 2019, p.180, as provided insupporting documents). In this proposal, the guam division of aquatic and wildlife resources(gdawr) and the hawaii institute of marine biology (himb) share an equivalent desire toreverse these trends by directly managing the recovery of guams atuhung population and furtherprotecting them as they sleep. Yet we currently lack a clear understanding of where they go whenthey retire for the night, nor do we possess the research infrastructure with which to uncover thoseclosely guarded secrets without the indigenous knowledge of anglers who have already garneredthat knowledge from our waters. These are the reasons that we shall embark upon a four-yearjourney focused upon: i) bringing atuhung to guam and II) using contemporary acoustic telemetrytechnology to fill data gaps identified within our state wildlife action plan as critical for theimplementation of effective conservation strategies for this species. Ironically, although thispopulation has historically been impacted by guams local fisheries, a great deal of this work alsodepends upon the efforts and indigenous knowledge of our local fishermen, not only to deploy thereceiver array, implant the transmitter tags, and retrieve the data, but also to develop spatiallyexplicit management objectives for mitigating future losses associated with habitat degradationand climate variability. Fortunately, after decades of bearing witness to a scuba-fishing industrythat may well have decimated our atuhung population where they sleep, guam has enacted ascuba-spear BAN which attests to their readiness to explore more effective managementstrategies and thus, we shall also III) create opportunities for guams citizenry to be trained in theresearch techniques to achieve these lofty goals. Together, our newly established guamtelemetry network will conduct this two-year, island-wide study of the movements of acousticallytaggedand subsequently released fish to determine spatio-temporal movement, identify homeranges, and pattern their use of habitat to evaluate the efficacy of current policies (e.g., scubafishingban, mpas) and, as suggested by information obtained during this project, developmeasures spatially explicit to this sgcn.