Of all the fisheries issues that have arisen over the past decade, the fight over recreational red snapper management in the Gulf of Mexico is among the most acrimonious, and one of the most difficult to resolve.
It started out
simply. As fisheries managers began to successfully rebuild the red snapper
stock, red snapper anglers began catching, and keeping, more fish.
As other anglers became aware of their success, those anglers began targeting
red snapper, too, pushing recreational landings even higher, to the point that
they regularly exceeded the annual catch limit.
In response, federal
fisheries managers tightened restrictions in an effort to get recreational
landings under control. Anglers, bristling at regulations that became more
restrictive at the same time that red snapper were growing more abundant, convinced state fisheries managers, who had previously followed
the federal managers’ lead, to go out of compliance with
federal regulations. That led to higher recreational landings in state waters;
to compensate, federal managers kept shortening the season in waters they
controlled, leading to a spiral of higher state landings and more restrictive
federal rules that finally culminated, in 2017, to a federal red snapper season
that was only three days long.
After various
anglers’ rights groups, and their allies in the fishing and boating industries,
complained to the new presidential administration about the shortened season,
the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) agreed to reopen the recreational red snapper season for
part of the summer, an illegal action which assured that overfishing would
occur, and led to a lawsuit which was settled only
after NMFS stipulated, in writing, that it would not take
such an action again.
Things just kept
getting worse until the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council adopted a solution that,
it hoped, would satisfy all parties: NMFS would continue to set the annual
recreational catch limit, but the states, some aided by state-administered,
NMFS-approved surveys that provided more timely information on recreational catch,
landings, and effort, could set fishing seasons that best suited their local
fisheries.
That solution was
heralded by many who had previously criticized the federal fisheries management
system. On February 6, 2020, the Center for Sportfishing Policy, one of the
most unrelenting critics of federal red snapper management, announced that
"Today, the recreational
fishing and boating community praised final action taken by NOAA Fisheries to
implement state management for private anglers fishing for red snapper in the
Gulf of Mexico. Today’s action cements the management changes found in “Reef
Fish Amendment 50: State Management for Recreational Red Snapper” agreed to by
the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (Gulf Council) in April 2019 and
sent to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross for approval…
“'We have reason to
celebrate today thanks to the willingness of the state fish and wildlife
agencies on the Gulf Coast and the leadership of Secretary Ross and
congressional champions like Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and
Representatives Garret Graves (R-La.), Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Austin Scott
(R-Ga.),' said Jeff Angers, president of the Center for Sportfishing Policy. 'Over the past two years, private recreational red snapper anglers in the Gulf
have become more active partners in the states’ data collection systems and
enjoyed much longer red snapper seasons than the federal system was able to
provide.'
But now, the
enthusiasm for the new management measures seems to be waning, as new data is
revealing that recreational red snapper landings, even under joint state and
federal management, continue to exceed sustainable levels.
Much of the problem
appears to arise from anglers’ misunderstanding of the data generated by state
surveys such as Alabama’s “Snapper Check” and Mississippi’s “Tails ‘n Scales.”
Such surveys were intended to supplement the federal Marine
Recreational Information Program (MRIP), and provide more timely estimates of
recreational landings. Because each employs a methodology that differs somewhat
from the methodologies used by the other states and by MRIP, scientists
recognized, as early as January 2018, that the results of each survey would have to be calibrated into
a so-called “common currency,” before they could be used in the fishery
management process.
When surveys such
as Alabama’s Snapper Check showed lower landings than did MRIP,
anglers immediately assumed that the state figures represented the more
accurate estimate; state fishery managers did the same thing, depending on the
lower state numbers to set a longer season that resulted in a larger harvest.
Yet even as most
states’ 2020 red snapper seasons were beginning to open, state managers had
reason to know that the state surveys were undercounting recreational landings.
A document released by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (Gulf
Council) in early June indicated that, if the state surveys were calibrated to
work with MRIP data, Mississippi and Alabama would see their quotas cut by 63
percent and 58 percent, respectively, while Louisiana’s quota would be reduced
by nearly 30 percent.
Despite that
knowledge, the Gulf Council set 2020 state quotas at levels that, given the
uncalibrated state surveys, would certainly lead to overfishing. States made no
effort to prevent that from happening; Alabama even reopened its season for three days in
October, after closing it in early July, so that anglers might land their
entire, uncalibrated quota.
But actions have
consequences, and because the Gulf Council and the fisheries managers in the
Gulf States decided to ignore the calibration issue, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas, have overfished their
recreational allocations and must now be held accountable for
such overages.
Although anyone
paying attention to the issue should have known that would happen, as soon as
the news came out, long-time critics of federal red snapper management began to
feign surprise and renew their attacks on federal fisheries managers.
As part of their
renewed assault, spokesmen for various angling-related organizations falsely
claimed that the data generated by MRIP conflicted with the state data when, in
truth, all of the data merely needed to be calibrated into a common
currency. As NMFS noted, “The MRIP state surveys are designed to
improve regional monitoring of the recreational red snapper catch and effort.
Estimates from these surveys can be used for federal scientific stock
assessments and fishery management once there is a transition plan that
describes how to integrate state and general data, and how to calibrate new and
historical catch and effort data.”
Instead of explaining
the need for calibration to the angling community, various anglers’ rights
organizations, assembled under the banner of the Center for Sportfishing
Policy, seemingly tried to incite angler outrage against federal fisheries
managers. Ted Venker, Conservation Director of the Coastal Conservation
Association, went so far as to accuse federal managers of engaging in
“gamesmanship” and a desire “to continue its adversarial relationship with the
states and with recreational anglers.”
That statement proved
so outrageous that NMFS took the unusual step of issuing a public response,
which stated, in part, that “The recent press release regarding NOAA Fisheries’
Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) contains many inaccuracies and
omissions. Foremost among them is mentions of ‘gamesmanship.’ Along with our
state partners, NOAA fisheries has dedicated significant time, expertise, and
resources toward the development of these state data collection workshops.”
The anglers’ rights
community offered no explanation as to how NMFS’ helping the states to develop
their recreational data programs constitutes “an adversarial relationship” with
such states. Instead, it started a new initiative to discredit federal
managers, this one based on something called “The Great Red Snapper Count (Count).”
The Count, standing
on its own, is a remarkable scientific endeavor. Supported by a $10 million
federal grant, it has engaged a number of highly qualified biologists, using
state-of-the-art scientific methodologies, to determine how many red snapper
now reside in the U.S. portion of the Gulf of Mexico. The results, once they
are finally calculated and reviewed, should make a significant contribution to
scientists’ knowledge of Gulf red snapper.
The Harte Research
Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, a part of Texas A&M University at
Corpus Christi, is lead institution for the Count. It advises that “Results from this study will be
compared with stock assessment results to examine what accounts for any
differences observed. This project represents a unique opportunity to bolster
the stock assessment-derived estimate of red snapper abundance for the U.S.
Gulf of Mexico, with the goal of ensuring the most robust management possible
for this iconic fishery species.”
Mississippi State
University Extension, another institution involved in the study, echoes those comments, saying that “the Great Red
Snapper Count will provide new insight into the Gulf of Mexico red snapper
population, while also helping to calculate the current stock assessment.”
Although the Count’s
results have yet to be finalized and peer-reviewed, it appears that it has
already made one big discovery: Most of the red snapper in the Gulf
of Mexico don’t live on reefs, wrecks, oil rigs and other high-profile
structure, as people have long believed. Instead, the majority reside over
sand, mud, or other low-profile bottom, where few people fished and even
scientists failed to look for them.
That’s the kind of
information that, if confirmed, can and should be integrated into the red
snapper stock assessment. It will inform scientists not only about current
abundance, but about the likely size of the unfished red snapper stock, the
spawning potential of such unfished stock, and how today’s population and
spawning potential compares. That information, in turn, will allow fishery
managers to determine the health of the stock, and calculate the harvest limits
that must be imposed to assure its sustainability.
Unfortunately,
anglers’ rights groups are using the preliminary information for something
else—to renew their attack on federal fishery managers. The Coastal
Conservation Association’s Texas chapter issued a press release which alleged,
in part, that
"It turns out that
NOAA just doesn’t count snapper very well…This week, the Great Red Snapper
Count, as it was called, revealed that, while preliminary, instead of the 36
million red snapper NOAA believed were in the population, there are really more
like three times that number, or 100-million plus red snapper out there…The
implications of this are hard to overstate. It means that the foundation of
everything NOAA thought it knew about red snapper is fundamentally cracked…It
means that the only crisis in red snapper has been NOAA’s faulty data and its
culture that tailors management for the privileged few rather than the many.
The snapper count means that NOAA has been wrong about a lot of things and has
been wrong for a long time."
Like the earlier
comment about “gamesmanship,” those allegations, too, were inaccurate, and
unjustifiably stirred up anglers’ ire. As NMFS explained, “the preliminary abundance estimates
produced by the study are consistent with those of the 2018 Gulf red snapper
stock assessment conducted by NOAA Fisheries for natural and artificial
structures, of high relief areas…What’s new is that this study better estimates
the red snapper living in the low relief/bottom habitat, such as sand or mud.”
NMFS wasn’t aware of the number of fish that lived
over such bottom because “Historically, much of the Gulf red snapper stock
assessment data comes from the fishery. The fishery occurs mostly on the high
relief natural and artificial structures in the Gulf or from surveys conducted
near those areas. And, while we suspected there were more fish out there, a
study of this magnitude is unprecedented.”
Now that the Count
has revealed the fish’s presence, that information will be incorporated into the
management process, although right now, no one knows how it will impact
management measures.
As NMFS has already advised, “While it is difficult to
determine exactly how this study will influence red snapper management, we
intend to incorporate study results into an interim stock assessment in 2021.
We will work with our partners on the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council
and their Scientific and Statistical Committee to peer-review the assessment
and make adjustments to red snapper management as appropriate.”
That’s the right way
to manage red snapper: Using new data to augment current information, to assure
that such management employs the best available science, and best assures that
the red snapper stock is sustainable in the long term.
Hopefully, despite
the ongoing controversies surrounding recreational red snapper management in
the Gulf, NMFS will be allowed to do just that.
-----
This essay first
appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog of the Marine Fish Conservation
Network, which can be found at http://conservefish.org/blog/
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