Caribbean

Case Study: Parrotfish

Parrotfish are named for their tightly packed mosaic of teeth on the outside of the jaw bone that form a parrot‐like beak. Parrotfish actually make the sand that creates the idyllic Caribbean beaches that draw tourists from around the world. The fish eat a wide variety of organisms that live on coral, including algae that would otherwise choke the reefs. Bits of coral that are picked up with the algae are excreted as sand. One parrotfish can chew coral into 200 pounds of sand each year.

• Parrotfish have become a more important target for fishermen as the number of prized fisheries and large fish of other species like snapper and grouper have dropped to dangerously low levels.¹
• Parrotfish are herbivorous and keep corals free of smothering algae and debris.
• Parrotfish, like most herbivores, serve a vital role as prey for larger species of fish.
• The overfishing of parrotfish has been directly linked to the decline of the Caribbean coral reef.²
• Parrotfish are now being taken more quickly than they can reproduce in the US Caribbean.
• The Council’s science committee has recommended that fishing should be prohibited for certain parrotfish, such as the midnight parrotfish pictured below.
• The Council, along with the Virgin Islands territorial government, is bound by law to end overfishing and return parrotfish to a healthy population size.

¹ Mumby, Peter et. al., Thresholds and the resilience of Caribbean coral reefs. Nature 450, 98-101 (1 November 2007)
² Ibid.