3.1 | Tagged and recaptured OTC-marked A. vulpinus

For the 14 A. vulpinus included in this study, average time at liberty was 2.14 years (±0.97 years SD), ranging from 1.08 to 3.81 years. All were juveniles (Natanson et al., 2016; Natanson & Gervelis, 2013) with an average 101 cm LF (± 13.42 cm SD) at tagging. Study animals for whom a recapture length was provided (n = 9) averaged 137 cm LF (± 18.47 cm SD) at recapture (Table 1).

3.2 | Age validation

We found no systematic age bias (p> 0.05) in all comparisons for POTC and POBB counts (χ 2 -tests of symmetry; Figure 4). Variability among reader counts across all three readers was lower after the BB with an APE of 7.32%, and an ACV of 9.51%, compared to an APE of 10.70% and an ACV of 14.00% for POTC counts. Among readers, all final band pair counts after the OTC were within one band pair of each other, and 93% (13 of 14) of the counts after the BB were within one band pair (Table 1). The slopes of the linear regression analysis conducted for each reader ranged from 0.84 to 0.94 (95% confidence intervals ranging from 0.43 to 1.36, Table 2; Figure 5), and were not significantly different from each other based on an F -test (F = 0.3275, p = 0.8054). The goodness of fit of the linear relationships ranged from 0.60 to 0.76 (Table 2; Figure 5), which indicates that the model explains 60% – 76% of the variability in the data around its mean, respectively.