At the end of 2019, The Billfish Foundation announced the Juvenile Billfish Project. The Juvenile Billfish Project was created with our friend Dr. Freddy Arocha to fill the massive gap in knowledge of the early lives of billfish. Billfish have high mortality rates in their juvenile stages and there is little known about where they breed and spawn. As a result, it is impossible to track and study them using regular tagging methods. The Juvenile Billfish Project asks TBF members worldwide to send in photos and information about their sightings of juvenile billfish. With this information, we hope to locate temporal and geographic trends in juvenile billfish presence to understand how and where best to conserve them.
We are so proud of how the Juvenile Billfish Project performed in its inaugural year. With submissions of juvenile sailfish and black marlin from the Gulf of Mexico, the Red Sea, the Mid-Atlantic, and offshore Brazil, Mexico, Liberia, and Australia, we are humbled by the level of international cooperation our members have shown. Thank you so much to everyone that has participated in this program so far.
If you have ever come across juvenile billfish in your time offshore, send us an email at [email protected] with photos, GPS location, date, and any other information you have! Every submission is important in helping us uncover the mysteries of juvenile billfish!
