White Marlin! Nope, It's A Roundscale Spearfish

January 15, 2008

Release from: Xinhuanet (China)

BEIJING - "Hook up," shouts the excited fisherman with a fish on his line. "White marlin," replies his eagle-eyed fishing buddy as both anticipate a spectacular display of jumps characteristic of a marlin trying to dislodge the hook from its spear-like mouth.

But despite their best efforts to lure a white marlin to the hook, it's often the fishermen who are fooled. Not every marlin is a marlin — another billfish species known as the round scale spearfish closely resembles the over-fished white marlin. Researchers determined the fish was a white marlin pretender using detailed fish scale comparisons and DNA test.

"We don't know much about round scale spearfish, particularly how abundant they are," said Eric Prince, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service official and co-author of a study detailing the white marlin imposter in a recent issue of the journal Bulletin of Marine Science.

"If they are abundant and if they have been consistently misidentified as white marlin in the historical landings database -- then white marlin population sizes may have been overestimated in past assessments."

The good news for white marlins is they are not endangered, NOAA officials explained this week. The conclusion that the streamlined creature is not in danger of extinction is based on the biological status of the species used to assess its Endangered Species Act eligibility.

"All indications are that the white marlin stock has grown since we last estimated the stock size in 2002," said Roy Crabtree, NOAA's Fisheries Service southeast regional administrator. "With reduced fishing mortality the population should remain stable or continue to increase."

It is still legal to catch white marlin for sport, but commercial efforts to catch the fish are illegal in U.S. waters.