Movement and mortality of invasive suckermouth armored catfish during a spearfishing control experiment

Control of non-native, invasive species in groundwater-dependent ecosystems that are also inhabited by regionally endemic or at-risk species represents a key challenge in aquatic invasive species management. Non-native suckermouth armored catfish (SAC; family Loricariidae) have invaded freshwater ecosystems on a global scale, including the groundwater-dependent upper San Marcos River in Texas, USA. We used passive integrated transponder tags to follow the movements and fates of 65 fish in a 1.6 km spring-fed reach of the upper San Macros River to assess the efficacy of a community-based spearfishing bounty hunt for controlling SAC. We found the weekly probability of SAC survival was negatively correlated with the number of fish removed as a part of the bounty hunt each week ( P = 0.003, R 2 = 0.86), while the probability of SAC being speared and reported was positively correlated with the number of fish removed ( P = 0.011, R 2 = 0.53). The majority of SAC used