Texas Fauna Project

Atlantic Tarpon

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Paul Swacina, a Corpus Christi attorney, is a long-time angler and conservationist. He has been especially interested in understanding and reversing the decline in the Atlantic tarpon, once plentiful off Texas' coast. Here he describes some of the factors behind the tarpon population's collapse during the mid-20th century, including dam construction, shrimp fishing, oil and gas activity, hurricane impacts, and netting.