Inventory of groupers and brown meagres along the Principality’s coastline

© Direction de l’Environnement

The grouper, an iconic Mediterranean fish, has almost disappeared from our coasts as a result of spearfishing. It is considered by the experts of UICN (1) to be an endangered species and, like the brown meagre, has enjoyed protected status (2) in the Principality since 1993.

Every three years since 2006, the Department of the Environment has called on the Grouper Study Group (Groupe d’Etude du Mérou - GEM), a French non-profit with over one hundred members and correspondents around the world that, for over thirty years, has used special counting techniques to assess the population dynamics of groupers and brown meagres as well as the effectiveness of protection measures.

The seventh monitoring campaign will be carried out from Monday 30 September to Friday 4 October 2024 along the entire coastline of the Principality and will provide 18 years’ worth of data on these populations.

The counting technique used for the GEM campaigns is as exhaustive as possible in terms of covering the relevant areas. Divers are split into two teams and move in parallel, a few metres apart, depending on the topography of the sites and on visibility conditions.

Each time they encounter a grouper or brown meagre, various details are noted: size (total length, estimated to the nearest 5 cm), species (a mottled grouper was observed during another study), dive time, depth and habitat characteristics (rock, grass, scree, rock cavity, drop-off, etc.) The behaviour of the fish (fled, indifferent, in a hole or in open water), and the direction of travel if it moved, were also noted.

Contact: environnement@gouv.mc

(1) : International Union for Conservation of Nature

(2) : Sovereign Ordinance No. 10 779 of 29 January 1993 and Sovereign Ordinance No. 16.456 of 7 October 2004

© Direction de l’Environnement