Restoration Brings Fish back to Florida Mangroves

The largest mangrove restoration project in Florida history just wrapped up at the Rookery Bay Reserve, and the early returns look good, not just for the trees, but for the recreational fishing economy that depends on them.

In the 1940s, road construction between Marco Island and the town of Goodland severed the natural water flow to Fruit Farm Creek, wiping out 60 acres of mangrove habitat that provided nursery grounds for many recreational fish.

With funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Reserve installed new culvert pipes under the road to reconnect the natural hydrology and restore flow to more than 209 acres of stressed mangrove forest. While the project was an unqualified success for the trees, the Reserve wanted to know whether this investment was improving habitat for fish.

The Reserve partnered with NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) to track the movements of the fish before, during and after the restoration over 30 months. They tagged and released more than 130 fish including tarpon, mangrove snapper and catfish with acoustic transmitters and monitored them across a network of strategically placed data loggers throughout the study area.

The findings are encouraging. Construction caused no meaningful disruption to fish habitat use, and after restoration was complete, some fish, including Tarpon, showed immediate use of restored creeks as well as increased use of downstream areas, a direct signal that restored mangrove connectivity is expanding usable habitat. 

Bonefish & Tarpon Trust (BTT) applauds the successful completion of the largest mangrove restoration project in Florida history,” said JoEllen Wilson, BTT’s Juvenile Tarpon Habitat Program Manager. “This critical work will restore essential habitat for tarpon and snook and improve natural hydrology within Rookery Bay, helping to ensure a healthy and sustainable future for two of Florida’s most iconic game fish.”

“For a region where recreational fishing contributes hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the local economy, this is a meaningful return on a restoration investment,” says TJ Snopkowski, executive director of Friends of Rookery Bay. “It’s just one of many reasons why our members support the Reserve and the national network of Reserves around the country.”

This project is part of a broader pattern of Rookery Bay Reserve leveraging its long-term monitoring program to address critical management questions. In a parallel effort, NCCOS analyzed two decades of fish abundance data from the Reserve’s primary monitoring program to assess how freshwater flow changes following the Picayune Strand Restoration affected juvenile fish populations in the mangrove-lined bays of the Ten Thousand Islands. 

“This kind of longitudinal dataset, built over years through the Reserve’s core monitoring mission, is exactly what Florida and other states need to make sound, evidence-based decisions about how best to manage their precious fisheries,” says Rebecca Roth, executive director of the National Estuarine Research Reserve Association.