Abstract:Estuaries are highly productive ecosystems that provide an important nursery function to many marine-spawning fish species. To gain a better understanding of the importance of these systems to estuary-associated species, knowledge on their movement patterns within estuaries is necessary. This is particularly relevant in the development of alternative management options such as estuarine protected areas (EPAs). The Goukou Estuary in the Western Cape has a formalised EPA within its boundaries, therefore this study aims at assessing the efficacy of this EPA by studying the movement behaviour of two important estuary-dependent fishery species with two very different movement behaviours.

This is the OBIS extraction of the Ocean Tracking Network and South African Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) Goukou Estuary fish tracking, consisting of the release tagging metadata, i.e. the location and date when the tagged animal was released, and summarized detection events of tagged individuals. If readers are interested in the source dataset they may also inquire with the project PIs as listed here or on the OTN web site (https://members.oceantrack.org/project?ccode=SAF.GEFT).