Fishy Red Snapper Study Delays Responsible Action
Information is an important thing. We need accurate information before we can act appropriately. However, waiting for additional information can become an tactic for those seeking to inappropriately prolong denial and inaction.
That’s the case with H.R. 3307, a bill introduced this week by John Mica, a U.S. Representative from Florida. The legislation would block new regulations on the fishing of red snapper until the completion of a study by the Department of Commerce of the population of the fish in the South Atlantic.
Representative Mica was joined by seven cosponsors who signed their name to his bill right away:
Henry Brown
Ander Crenshaw
Walter Jones
Mike McIntyre
Jeff Miller
Cliff Stearns
Lynn Westmoreland
Notice a trend? Yes, these politicians all represent districts where powerful interests profit from continuing to haul red snappers out of the water like buffalo hides from the Great Plains.
Why the call for a new study, and why from the Department of Commerce, instead of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is actually qualified and prepared to carry out fish population studies? The answer has more to do with commerce than it has to do with science.
“Before we halt fishing, it is important that we secure accurate information on the health and status of the current red snapper population,” Congressman Mica has said.
Accurate information on the health and status of the current red snapper population? Okay, let’s take a look at the latest information available from the National Marine Fisheries Services, based upon the Southeast Fisheries Science Center Southeast Data, Assessment, and Review for the Gulf of Mexico in 2005 and the for the South Atlantic in 2008, plus the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Annual Commercial Landing Statistics. You’re not going to get more current information than that.
That information shows that red snapper populations continue to be devastated, at 6 percent of what they ought to be in the Gulf of Mexico and 3 percent of what they ought to be in the South Atlantic. The problem: Overfishing that targets red snapper, and bycatch of red snapper in other fishing operations. The following chart shows the trend in the amount of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic over the last half century.
Any fool can see that red snapper in the ocean around the Southeastern United States are not thriving. They’re at a tiny fraction of a healthy population. What additional research does Congressman Mica and his cohort of coastal denial think could possibly indicate that fishing of red snapper can go on as normal?
The fallacy of managing a fish stock by using Annual Commercial Landings as a health indicator is never more apparent that in the red snapper fishery.
Many factors contribute to a “bad” fishing year, and 2005 was one of the worst years on record for hurricanes in the Gulf.
Currently, fishers both commercial and recreational report that the snapper population in the Gulf is at an intensity and individual size not to have been seen for decades.
The commercial sector has been fishing under an IFQ since January of 2007. A hard total allowable catch (TAC) goes hand in hand with the IFQ to ensure fishing effort is kept BELOW sustainable yield.
Perhaps of greatest impact has been the decimation of the shrimp fleet, a reduction of 75% of vessels/effort since Katrina and others pounded the Gulf.
Fuel prices, a lack of tariffs on imports to protect American fishers, and the economy in general has resulted in a shrimp fishery that is but a skeleton of it’s recent self, with the end result that TRILLIONS of juvenile snapper are now allowed to grow up unmolested by trawls.
The red snapper explosion in the Eastern Gulf is such that grouper fishermen must “weed” through hundreds of uncharacteristically large red snapper to catch a grouper.
Similar testimony is available from fishers in the Southwest Atlantic.
The information that is used by NMFS in it’s stock assessments is 4 years old by the time any particular SEDAR has been published. 2005 stock assessment current? Ya. It was current in 2001-2002, because that is the “currency” of the data!!
The writer of this article needs to get his facts straight before he attacks a way of life that has been and continues to be a vital aspect of American life, the venerable fisherman.
One last thought. If the author, editor, and publisher of this article expect to the gentle reader to find the truth therein, perhaps they should garnish the article with a picture of American red Snapper, instead of an imported Caribean cousin.
Martin, you know very well that the assessment of red snapper population is obtained through many more methods than just the landing surveys, right? Do you have anything more than anecdotal information to back up your claims?
The way of life of fishermen is under threat because fish populations of many species are in serious declines. Don’t blame the scientists, the messengers of that fact. Responsible management will protect fishermen. Denial won’t.
how many of these so called scientist have been on a fishing boat lately. I recently went and we couldn’t get to the target fish for the Red Snapper. We probably caught 10 snapper to every 1 other fish. Captain says it’s like that every day. Other Captains I have spoken with say the same thing. This regulation is absolutely rediculous! Leave it to our all knowing government to get involved where it has no business.
I’d have to agree….a picture of a real red snapper in their article might indicate that these folks who live in cubicles might know what they are talking about…