New Blue Marlin Study Illuminates Age-Length Relationship

A new TBF-supported study out of the University of Miami made great strides in understanding the relationship between age and growth of Atlantic blue marlin. The study examined growth annuli in anal fin spines of 1,638 blue marlin caught as bycatch in Venezuela to determine the age of each fish. Growth annuli are small rings inside of the fin spine that increase in number as the fish ages, much like the rings in a tree trunk. They then correlated this age information to the lower jaw fork length (LJFL) to determine how well LJFL predicts fish age. The study found