From early summer to autumn, juveniles start to appear in coastal habitats, at about 60 mm in length.
These juveniles are often associated with structure, but not to the same extent as settlement stage juveniles.
Their diet continues to diversify, and food abundance has a major influence on their distribution. In some systems, spatial dispersion at this stage can allow a small number of estuaries to supply the majority of recruits to areas covering hundreds of kilometres.
Juvenile snapper at this stage are large enough that they will experience some level of incidental mortality as a by-catch of the fishery for adult snapper.
NIWA