"CORPORATE GREED" IN FISHERIES MANAGEMENT

 

We’ve all heard, or perhaps read, the comments that inevitably arise whenever a fish stock declines or management measures are hotly debated.  The conversation never goes on for long before some apparently outraged angler gets up and starts yelling, “This is all about greed!”

Such claims emerged in recent striped bass debates, when the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Striped Bass Management Board was deciding whether to reduce striped bass landings, first in January 2024, and then again in December 2024 and October 2025.  A comment that appeared on a New Jersey saltwater fishing forum was typical:

“The incessant focus on economics and political and state greed versus the prudent management of stocks continues to put another nail in the coffin of many of the remaining fisheries.  Nothing is sustainable if the regulations don’t support that outcome and protect stocks from exploitation, commercial and corporate greed and any issues like natural predation (dogfish) and the declining water quality conditions of the Chesapeake Bay which threaten a stock’s survival.”

We’re seeing the same thing in the current uproar over the National Marine Fisheries Service issuing exempted fishing permits for the recreational red snapper fishery in the South Atlantic.  One Facebook post by North Carolina charter boat captain and self-proclaimed “content creator” Jake Hiles took the “greed” narrative to new, conspiracy-theory-fueled heights, declaring that

“2 weeks ago President Trump took the regulatory power away from NOAA and National Marine Fisheries because the red snapper fishery had been regulated by corporate greed.  Basically a few wealthy stakeholders in the fishery control the entire coastwide resource and corruption at NMFS has allowed this to happen for years.  So Trump gives the red snapper resource back to the states because the federal system is corrupt and immediately the few wealthy stakeholders in the fishery sue and get the courts to give corrupt NMFS control of the red snapper fishery.  This is corporate greed and political corruption.”

Over the years, similar comments have been made in various fisheries.  In each case, the underlying assumption is that the commercial fishery is some huge, corporate monolith, that has the money, the political clout, and the public relations talents needed to control the entire fisheries management process, and take the lion’s share of the resource, while leaving the angling public with little more than dregs.

And in some fisheries, that assumption is almost true.  The North Pacific fishery for walleye pollock, the largest single fishery, commercial or recreational, in the United States (3.14 billion pounds landed in 2024), is certainly controlled by a relatively small number of influential corporations.

The same thing can probably be said about the menhaden reduction fishery, various mid-water trawl fisheries targeting high-volume, relatively low-value species such as herring and mackerel, and distant-waters boats such as Pacific tuna seiners and some pelagic longliners.

But all those fisheries tend to be defined by a few characteristics:  They are all big boat fisheries.  Many of them target fish that are either not recreational species or, at the least, are not highly valued by most recreational fishermen.  When they do target recreational species—generally tuna, swordfish, and sometimes certain species of sharks—they do so on distant grounds, in places or at times where anglers don’t commonly venture.

But when it comes to “mixed use” fisheries—those that are pursued by both commercial and recreational fishermen—the commercial fishermen tend to be far less imposing.  Although there are commercial fishing associations in most if not every coastal state, and some fishermen and, more often, fish buyers can be locally important, the commercial fishery for species such as striped bass, red snapper, or summer flounder is hardly the kind of economic and political colossus that most anglers imagine.  The typical commercial fisherman, working alone or with one or two crewmen to tend a gillnet, pinhook striped bass, or employ bandit rigs to pull some snapper off a southern reef only wishes that they had the kind of social, political, and economic clout that so many recreational fishermen believe that they do.

But that doesn’t mean that real corporate money, real corporate lobbyists, and real corporate greed aren’t distorting fisheries management process.  It’s just that anglers are looking in the wrong place to find it.

They ought to stop scrutinizing the commercial fishery, and start looking for evidence of corporate influence and corporate greed far, far closer to home.

Last fall, many striped bass anglers, concerned over record-low recruitment in the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere, were closely following the progress of the Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Public Comment, which among other things proposed cutting striped bass fishing mortality by 12%, and instituting the first-ever coastwide recreational striped bass season.

In previous years, recreational fishermen overwhelmingly supported such harvest reductions, even though they would sharply reduce anglers’ landings.  We saw that in 2021, when 2,746 public comments supported maintaining the biological reference points used to gauge the health of the stock, and only 18 supported a change that might increase landings at the expense of abundance.  At the same time, 529 comments supported the existing 10-year rebuilding deadline, while 45 wanted rebuilding to occur faster, even if it meant lower landings; no one argued for higher landings at the cost of slower rebuilding.

We saw it again in 2022, when over 4,000 comments supported the current management triggers that require fishing mortality to be reduced to target within one year when overfishing occurs, and requires a rebuilding plan—with a rebuilding period of 10 years or less—to be put in place when the stock becomes overfished, with barely 100 supporting a less vigorous response.  About the same proportion supported the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee using a more conservative “low recruitment assumption” and corresponding lowered fishing mortality rate if striped bass recruitment in the major spawning areas fell below a fixed benchmark for three consecutive years, and also supported allowing the Management Board to adopt more restrictive fishing measures without first sending a proposed plan addendum out for public comment, should an upcoming stock assessment update suggest the need for fast action.

And we saw it for a third time in 2024, when 2,289 comments supported reducing the coastal recreational slot size limit to just 28 to 31 inches, compared to only 199 who preferred more liberal options; 2,249 supported a commercial quota reduction of up to 14.5%, with only 159 opposed; and 2,150 again supported giving the Management  Board the freedom to adopt more restrictive measures for the 2025 fishery, if the stock assessment update suggested they were needed, while only 90 disagreed.

But last fall, for the first time, something different happened.  Anglers didn’t overwhelmingly support the proposed 12% reduction.  Part of that was probably due to the fact that, on the coast (as opposed to the Chesapeake Bay), that reduction was going to have to be achieved through a closed season, and some people were talking quite loudly about a closure when even catch-and-release would not be allowed.

Part of it was probably also due to uncertainty in the recreational landings data; there was little more than a year of data to show the impacts of the last regulatory change, and what data there was suggested that the stock might rebuild by the 2029 deadline even if no action was taken.

Yet there was also something else going on.  Among the comment letters sent in was one signed by six organizations, the American Sportfishing Association, the National Marine Manufacturers Association, the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, the Center for Sportfishing Policy, the Boat Owners Association of the United States, and the Coastal Conservation Association.  For the first time, the recreational fishing and boating industry was making an industry-wide effort to involve itself in striped bass conservation issues.

And in its debut, the industry opposed the proposed striped bass conservation measures, writing, in part,

“…Imposing new restrictions under these circumstances risks unnecessary economic harm and sows division within the recreational community, without offering measurable or scientifically meaningful biological results…

“Instead of acknowledging that status quo and a 12% reduction are scientifically equivalent, Draft Addendum III shifts the burden of [Marine Recreational Information Program] uncertainty onto anglers by forcing a choice between two unpalatable season closures: no-targeting closures, which ban fishing altogether and impacts both harvest and catch-and-release anglers, or no-harvest closures, which fall solely on anglers who keep fish.  We believe forcing anglers into this divisive choice, when science does not justify action, will cause significant economic and social impacts while not meaningfully improving striped bass conservation.

“We have serious concerns with no targeting closures because they prohibit fishing entirely.  At the same time, we must recognize that the burden of rebuilding has already fallen disproportionately on harvest anglers, even though fishing mortality is roughly evenly split between catch-and-release and harvest activities.  Draft Addendum III offers no option that addresses this inequity, other than prohibiting fishing altogether.  Given that the proposed 12% reduction is scientifically indistinguishable from status quo, we reject the premise that anglers must pick winners and losers and instead support maintaining current seasons as the best and most equitable alternative…

“The economic value of the striped bass fishery cannot be overstated…

“The proposed season closures—whether prohibiting harvest or targeting—will undoubtedly erode those substantial economic benefits and disproportionately impact coastal small businesses, bait and tackle shops, marinas, boat manufacturers, charter operators, and the entire recreational fishing and boating supply chain.

“We represent the entire recreational fishing and boating community, including businesses that serve all anglers regardless of economic background or preferred fishing technique.  Maintaining consistent seasons is the most equitable solution: It preserves both regional economic stability and angler access across preference lines, without inflicting unnecessary economic hardship…”

A similar letter, containing some nearly identical language, was submitted by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.  In addition, the American Sportfishing Association circulated a form letter containing much of the language included in the six-signatory letter quoted above, which was signed in its original form by 660 individuals, and in a modified form by 269 others, although it is not clear how many of those signatories reside on the Atlantic coast or fish for striped bass.

It’s important to note some themes that appear in the quoted letter, including the emphasis on economic issues, the emphasis on anglers’ ability to “access” and kill striped bass, the non-specific and non-supported attacks on the scientific data underlying the draft addendum, the non-specific attacks on the recreational fishing data produced by the Marine Recreational Information Program, and the allegations of significant harm to the entire coastal economy—the “entire recreational fishing and boating supply chain”—from restrictions involving a single species, because we’ll see the same claims resurface in other contexts.

It’s also important to understand who is standing behind the comments, for all of the organizations mentioned, both those who signed the six-signatory letter and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, are active members of the Center for Sportfishing Policy, an aggressive trade organization which freely admits that

“Our mission is to maximize the opportunity for saltwater anglers by engaging stakeholders to speak with one voice to shape federal fisheries policy.”

In addition,

“[The Center for Sportfishing Policy] is organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code; accordingly, donations are not tax-deductible.  Additionally, CSP has established the Center for Sportfishing Policy Political Action Committee (Center PAC), so that its members can fully participate in elective politics.  CSP and Center PAC work to elect candidates to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives who share our concern for America’s marine resources and support recreational fishing and boating.”

So what we’re dealing with is a trade organization created to influence federal fisheries policy, with a fully-funded political action committee intended to influence the actions of federal legislators.  Things get even more interesting when one takes a look at who is running the organization—that is, its Board of Directors.

It turns out that the Board includes representatives from the following corporations: Gemlux, which calls itself

“The world’s largest stainless steel marine hardware supplier,”

Mercury Marine, Butler Marine (a large South Carolina boat dealer), Garmin International (manufacturer of electronics for marine and other applications), Dometic Marine Americas (manufacturer of a variety of high-dollar marine products ranging from air conditioners to hydraulic control systems to gyroscopic stabilizers), Maverick Boats, Sportsman Boats, Viking Yachts, Release Marine (manufacturer of fighting chairs, rocket launchers, and other high-end marine furniture), Vectorply Corporation (manufacturer of “composite reinforcement fabrics,” the stuff that we usually think of as “fiberglass cloth,” but which is in reality far more varied and far more technically advanced), OneWater Marine (a publicly-traded company with a diverse portfolio of brands and products), Regulator Marine, Bass Pro Shops, Contender Boats, Shimano North America Fishing, Inc., Pure Fishing, Inc., AFTCO Fishing Apparel and Tackle, Yamaha Marine (including both Yamaha Engines and Yamaha Boats), Scout Boats, and Everglades Boats, along with representatives of two trade associations American Sportfishing Association and National Marine Manufacturers Association and a handful of angling groups.   

That’s a whole lot of corporate self-interest (it’s not polite to call it “greed”) and political clout all bunched up in one place, and it’s fair to say that all of those folks, along with the other members of the Center that are not on the Board, are going to support fisheries policies that will maintain and preferably increase their cash flow, even if that policy might not do the same thing for the nation’s fish stocks.

Anybody who thinks that some guy out in the bay on a garvey, tending a pound net or fishing hook-and-line—or even an entire fleet of such small-scale commercials—has as much political influence as the folks on the Center for Sportfishing Policy’s board is living in a fantasy world.

It really isn’t the commercial fishery’s money that is warping the fishery management process.

Now, I’m not going to pretend that the Center’s opposition was the reason that the 12% landings reductions wasn’t approved by the striped bass management board.  There were many factors that contributed to the management board’s decision and, in fact, the ASMFC is probably the most difficult structure for an entity such as the Center to influence. 

Because of the way the ASMFC’s management boards are structured, with each state sending a professional fisheries manager, a governor’s appointee, and a legislative appointee (or proxy), and with each state delegation caucusing to determine how it will vote, trying to influence a management board vote is an exercise in cat-herding, with the politics shifting from issue to issue, inter-state rivalries playing a role, and intra-state frictions sometimes influencing outcomes.

The Center’s input on the striped bass issue wasn’t notable because it made a discernable difference, but merely because, for the first time, it occurred at all.

Things are different at the federal level, where the Center and its member organizations have been interfering for a long time, generally trying to impeach the science and the recreational catch and landings data in order to increase recreational landings and, not coincidentally, to increase the sale of fishing equipment, boats, and boating-related gear.  In the federal arena, its political connections can be far more focused, and used to better effect.

The recreational fishing industry’s first big success arguably occurred in 2017, when it convinced the incoming Trump administration to ignore the conservation requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, and reopen the recreational red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico, even though doing so would, without question, lead to overfishing.  In issuing the rule reopening the fishery, NMFS admitted that

“The stock is still overfished.  While the stock is ahead of its rebuilding target, if employed for a short period of time, this approach may delay the ultimate rebuilding of the stock by as many as 6 years.  This approach likely could not be continued through time without significantly delaying the rebuilding timeline.  Similarly, the approach will necessarily mean that the private recreational sector will substantially exceed its annual catch limit, which was designed to prevent overfishing the stock…”

An email sent by Earl Comstock, Director of the Department of Commerce’s Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross noted that the extended recreational red snapper season

“would result in overfishing of the stock by six million pounds (40%),”

but still recommended going through with the proposed extension.

The Center for Sportfishing Policy, which had no small role in convincing NMFS to reopen the season, hailed the action, with Jeff Angers, its president, declaring that

“Today’s announcement [of the extended season] is a fix—albeit a short-term fix—that will allow millions to enjoy one of America’s greatest pastimes and boost economies far beyond the Gulf of Mexico—including in the manufacturing and retail sectors in non-coastal states.

”The federal fishery management system is failing recreational anglers on many levels, and the red snapper is the ‘poster fish’ of the quagmire.  The temporary rule directly addresses this problem, giving millions of recreational anglers in the Gulf of Mexico an opportunity to enjoy America’s natural resources and giving the Gulf economy a much needed shot in the arm.

“Today would not be possible without the tireless work of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.  Industry leaders met with Secretary Ross in March, and he listened.  We also thank Majority Whip Steve Scalese (R-La), Congressmen Garret Graves (R-La) and Austin Scott (R-Ga) for beginning the conversation with the Trump Administration in March regarding the mistreatment of private recreational anglers.  The status quo in federal fisheries management driven by radical environmentalists is a man-made fishery management disaster…”

By exerting pure political force, the industry had caused NMFS to ignore Magnuson-Stevens’ clear prohibitions on overfishing, thus showcasing two other hallmarks of the recreational fishing and boating industry’s efforts to influence fisheries policy: concerted efforts to get around Magnuson-Stevens’ conservation provisions, and attacks on the federal fisheries management system.

But, while recreational fishermen were able to overfish the Gulf red snapper stock in 2017, litigation brought by conservation groups managed to bring NMFS to heel; it ultimately entered into a settlement agreement in which it stated that the 2017 season extension, and its resultant overfishing, would not be repeated in the future.  The industry victory, though real, was also short-lived.

The recreational fishing and boating industry won a longer-lived victory early in 2020, when the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council adopted Amendment 50 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico.

Once again, the industry had attempted to evade the conservation provisions of Magnuson-Stevens, convincing then-Louisiana Congressman Garret Graves to sponsor something called the Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority Act, which would have taken responsibility for recreational red snapper management in the Gulf away from NMFS and hand it over to the states, which wouldn’t be bound by federal fisheries low, so that anglers could kill more fish (while they lasted) and, theoretically, the fishing and boating industry could sell more stuff.

That legislative effort also failed, eventually leaving the industry with Amendment 50 as its last, best option.  Amendment 50 allowed the states to set their own red snapper regulations, within certain prescribed limits, and use their own data collection systems to measure recreational landings.  Once Amendment 50 was fully implemented, recreational fishermen enjoyed longer red snapper seasons, thanks to state data collection programs that frequently reported lower catch rates than were reported by the federal system.

However, by 2025, for-hire vessel operators in the eastern Gulf were reporting a decline in both the size and abundance of red snapper, and it is very possible that the same state-generated regulations that allowed anglers to enjoy longer red snapper seasons and allowed the recreational fishing industry a longer season to sell tackle to red snapper anglers are also allowing recreational fishermen to remove too many red snapper from the population, causing a decline in both the number of larger fish and the number of fish overall.

Still, so long as sales are up, the industry is likely to continue to call Amendment 50 a win.

2023 saw the industry leave its familiar waters of the southeastern United States, and venture into the fisheries of the Mid-Atlantic region.  It wasn’t the sort of wholesale industry effort that we saw with Gulf of Mexico red snapper, but rather an effort spearheaded by the American Sportfishing Association, which worked with other interested parties to circumvent the clear mandates of Magnuson-Stevens in order to allow recreational fishermen to exceed their sector annual catch limits for bluefish, black sea bass, scup, and summer flounder.

The vehicle to do so was so-called Framework 17 to the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan and Framework 6 to the Bluefish Fishery Management Plan, which were collectively known as the Recreational Harvest Control Rule Framework.

Like earlier industry efforts, the Harvest Control Rule Framework attacked the strict conservation provisions of Magnuson-Stevens, and the federal recreational data collection program, in creating a framework where, when fish abundance exceeds the spawning stock biomass target, recreational landings might exceed the recreational harvest limit, recreational annual catch limit, and even the acceptable biological catch and overfishing limit, so long as spawning stock biomass remained high enough to produce maximum sustainable yield.

And like other industry efforts, the Harvest Control Rule Framework allowed anglers to kill more fish than they might have killed under a strict application of federal fisheries law, which is a hallmark of industry advocacy.  What impact that higher kill will have on the stocks is yet to be determined.

Finally, we have the current effort to extend recreational red snapper seasons in the South Atlantic by means of NMFS issuing exempted fishing permits.  Once again, the recreational industry tried to do an end-run around Magnuson-Stevens, using its political clout with state governors—most particularly Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis—and with the Trump Administration to overrule the scientists and subject matter experts at NMFS, and have top leadership issue exempted fishing permits that would have allowed anglers to ignore the annual catch limit for South Atlantic red snapper, and enjoy a recreational season 20 to 30 times as long as it was in 2025, with the resultant, unavoidable overfishing.

After President Trump himself announced, on social media, that the exempted fishing permits would be issued, the Center for Sportfishing Policy’s Angers gushed,

“The Administration’s visionary embrace of cooperative federalism wins the day—and the summer.  Their willing partnership with willing South Atlantic states brings the region hope for calm waters and exciting catches of a plentiful fisheries resource.  The state agencies are willing and anxious to do the hard work.  It’s a win-win for the fish, the anglers and coastal communities.  We thank President Trump for his leadership in advancing a path forward for South Atlantic anglers.”

The only problem was that the industry goal—having NMFS issue exempted fishing permits that would allow anglers to grossly overfish the South Atlantic red snapper resource—was apparently illegal, and any fishing pursuant to the permits was temporarily enjoined by a federal judge.

To hear some anglers tell it, the court’s action was all the commercial fishermen’s fault.  The “greedy” commercial fishermen’s fault, because they filed suit to protect the 11,200 or so red snapper that they may harvest each year, when anglers already—without the aid of exempted fishing permits—kill nearly 500,000 red snapper in the same one-year period, including about 475,000 fish that aren’t taken home or eaten, but merely returned to the water to die.

So, all things considered, are the commercial fishermen really greedy for trying to hang on to the few fish the law allows them to take?

Or is the real greed—and the real political influence—to be found in the recreational fishing and boatbuilding industry, which repeatedly tries to frustrate federal fisheries laws, and the conservation efforts of professional fisheries managers, in order to sell more merchandise to an expanding angling public?

Has that sort of greed blinded the industry to the simple fact that, without healthy fish stocks, their businesses cannot endure?

When we get to the point where killing half a million red snapper—475,000 of which go to waste—isn’t enough, and they want to kill more, even if it means overfishing the stock, the answer to those questions becomes dismayingly clear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAGNUSON-STEVENS: FROM THE BEGINNING

 

April 1976 found me at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, finishing up my senior year. I was wandering around campus, drinking too much beer, sleeping too late and, when time allowed, prepping for final exams. It was warm, at least for spring in central New England, so I often wore my new T-shirt, the one with the “BACK THE 200-MILE LIMIT” logo that I had purchased from a group called the National Coalition for Marine Conservation (now Wild Oceans) not long before.

Extending what we now call the Exclusive Economic Zone out to 200 miles was a big deal in those days, when the United States only claimed the waters 12 miles from shore and big, completely unregulated factory trawlers from multiple nations, the majority from the Soviet Union and other Soviet bloc countries, were doing their best to scrape every bit of life off the continental shelf, process it on board, and send it back to wherever the boats had come from.

What we now know as the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act was then just the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 (1976 legislation). It would push the foreign boats farther offshore, and was also intended to modernize and otherwise rehabilitate the domestic commercial fishing fleet, so that it could be more competitive with the fleets of other nations.

Conservation was not yet a priority.

Although the legislation addressed conservation concerns, it did not even define the terms “overfishing” or “overfished,” and contained no provision that required the rebuilding of overfished stocks. However, it did include the now-infamous definition of “optimum yield,” which stated that “The term ‘optimum,’ with respect to yield from a fishery, means the amount of fish (A) which will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, with particular reference to food production and recreational opportunities; and (B) which is proscribed as such on the basis of the maximum sustainable yield from such fishery, as modified by any relevant economic, social, or ecological factor. [emphasis added, formatting omitted]”

Regional fishery management councils regularly used that definition to justify landings that exceeded maximum sustainable yield (MSY), effectively “modifying” optimum yield upward so that the commercial fishing industry enjoyed greater earnings, which the councils deemed a “relevant economic…factor.”

Yet, even though the 1976 legislation was very industry-friendly, it ran into substantial opposition. The United States Navy was opposed to the 200-mile limit on freedom of navigation grounds; when I spoke to a Navy ROTC instructor at Holy Cross, who was the closest thing to an official spokesman that I knew at the time, he said that instead of keeping foreign fishing vessels 200 miles offshore, the United States fishing fleet should develop the sort of big fishing trawlers that could cross oceans and fish off other nations’ shores, the same way that the foreign boats were fishing off ours.

The fact that the fish in those foreign waters were, for the most part, already depleted, which is why their boats came all the way over here, was something that the Navy apparently never considered.

The big Pacific tuna harvesters also opposed the 1976 legislation, at least at first. Some South American nations had already declared 200-mile exclusive economic zones, closing their waters to the U.S. purse seiners who wanted to fish there; a number of United States vessels had been taken into custody when they failed to respect the closure. The tuna industry believed that, if the United States established its own 200-mile closure, it would validate the actions of the South American states, to the detriment of U.S. companies.

As a result of that resistance, the 1976 legislation was amended to provide that “The term ‘highly migratory species’ means species of tuna which, in the course of their life cycle, spawn and migrate over great distances in waters of the ocean,” and to declare that “The exclusive fishery management authority of the United States shall not include, nor shall it be construed to extend to, highly migratory species of fish.”

With those changes, the tuna industry ceased its lobbying against the 1976 legislation, and the bill that would eventually be named the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act became law.

As a 21-year-old fish nerd, I was excited by the bill’s passage, but my excitement was premature. Although the 1976 legislation established the eight regional fishery management councils and provided low-interest funding for fishermen seeking to purchase new vessels, it had little immediate impact on the health of fish stocks. Overfishing continued in many of the most important fisheries, and many stocks continued to decline in abundance.

I had hoped that, with the passage of the 1976 legislation, the cod that I caught from Rhode Island party boats would rebound from the lows that we blamed on the foreign trawlers, and that inshore species such as summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass would become more available to anglers.

That didn’t happen. Instead, the cod continued to decline; in 1991, I took a three-day trip on a Montauk, New York party boat, that sailed 13 hours before stopping to fish on New England’s famed Georges Bank, and ended up bringing home fewer cod than I did 15 years before, fishing on day boats out of Galilee, Rhode Island. By 1989, haddock stocks were at record low levels, Atlantic pollock were in decline, and a stock assessment performed in that year found that summer flounder were so badly overfished that few individuals were more than two years old.

Fishing for so many species had gotten so bad that, during much of the season, unless the weather was good enough to let me run my 25-foot outboard offshore for sharks, white marlin, or tuna, I often didn’t bother running the boat at all.

But things were about to change.

All along the coast, both recreational and commercial fishermen grew ever more concerned with the number of declining fish stocks. Eventually, Congress responded with the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996 (SFA) which, for the first time, created legally enforceable requirements that overfished stocks be rebuilt within a time certain—in most cases, in no more than ten years—and that overfishing be prevented; regional fishery management councils were no longer allowed to set optimum yield higher than MSY.

At first, the regional fishery management councils didn’t really take SFA’s new requirements seriously, and continued to do business as usual. But in 1999, after the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council set a summer flounder quota that had only an 18% chance of preventing overfishing, the Natural Resources Defense Council sued. The resulting Court of Appeals decision in Natural Resources Defense Council v. Daley, which was handed down in 2000, changed the course of federal fisheries management. The court found that fisheries management measures had to have at least a 50% probability of preventing overfishing, and that managers must give conservation first priority when choosing among different management alternatives.

That court decision had an immediate impact on federal fisheries management. With conservation the first priority, and 10-year rebuilding deadlines for most species in place, stocks began to recover. Since 2000, 52 once-overfished stocks have been completely rebuilt. In the waters I fished off New York’s Long Island, summer flounder were once again abundant, with many four- and five-year-old fish being taken by anglers.

Still, some of the regional fishery management councils were finding creative ways to sidestep Magnuson-Stevens’ requirements. The New England Fishery Management Council was particularly adept at evading the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. Eschewing hard-poundage quotas that might have had a chance to restore dwindling cod and flounder stocks, the New England Council tried various input controls, such as limiting a commercial vessel’s days at sea, without imposing annual catch limits on the fleet. The measures looked good on paper, where they supposedly demonstrated a 50% probability of success, but in the real world, they allowed overfishing to continue each year. Stocks of cod, flounder, and other groundfish continued to dwindle.

In response, Congress passed the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006 (2006 Reauthorization), which contained new language requiring that regional fishery management councils “develop annual catch limits for each of its managed fisheries that may not exceed the fishing level recommendations of its scientific and statistical committee…” Furthermore, every fishery management plan was required to “establish a mechanism for specifying annual catch limits in the plan (including a multiyear plan), implementing regulations, or annual specifications, at a level such that overfishing does not occur in the fishery, including measures to ensure accountability.”

The requirement for science-based, hard-poundage catch limits ended most efforts to evade Magnuson-Stevens’ conservation provisions, and some stocks, such as black sea bass north of Cape Hatteras and red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, quickly began to increase in abundance.

But there was also a backlash to the 2006 Reauthorization, driven by the recreational fishing industry.

That happened because abundance tends to drive recreational fishing effort. As fish become more abundant, they also become easier for anglers to catch, and so more anglers begin to pursue them. The combination of more anglers, more recreational trips, and increasing abundance caused anglers’ landings to spike. I was no exception to that general rule; as larger black sea bass, some approaching four pounds in weight, became more common in the ocean off Long Island, I found myself spending more time fishing for them on local wrecks, and regularly filling my coolers with limits of fish.

Because of that increased angler activity, overfishing regularly occurred, accountability measures were invoked, and recreational management measures became more restrictive. Anglers, seeing fish increasing in abundance, couldn’t understand why more restrictive measures were needed, while the angling industry, seeking to sell more tackle, more boats, and more trips on for-hire vessels, began attacking the federal fishery management process and encouraging recreational fishermen to do the same.

Arguing that hard-poundage annual catch limits and strict rebuilding deadlines aren’t an appropriate means to regulate the recreational sector, the industry successfully advocated for the Modernizing Recreational Fishery Management Act of 2017 (Modern Fish Act), which provided a supposedly viable pathway for evading such measures with language that authorized the regional fishery management councils “to use fishery management measures in a recreational fishery (or the recreational component of a mixed-use fishery) in developing a fishery management plan, plan amendment, or proposed regulation, such as extraction rates, fishing mortality targets, harvest control rules, or traditional or cultural practices of native communities in such fishery or fishery component.”

While a separate title of the law made it clear that nothing in the Modern Fish Act was intended to modify the conservation provisions of Magnuson-Stevens, the new legislation allowed the regional fishery management councils to push the limits of existing law when adopting recreational management measures.

The first real test came in 2023, after the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council adopted the so-called Recreational Harvest Control Rule Framework (framework), which allowed managers to, under specified circumstances, establish recreational landing limits that exceeded both the recreational harvest limit and the annual catch limit in the bluefish, summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass fisheries.

The original impetus for the framework was an extremely abundant black sea bass stock, which a 2016 stock assessment found to be 240% of its target level, and incessant angling industry criticism of federal black sea bass management. Such criticism had already cowed fishery managers, who didn’t want to have to explain more restrictive fisheries management to aggressive, objecting stakeholders, even when it was clear that recreational landings were chronically exceeding the sector’s annual catch limit. Even before the framework was adopted, I noted that excessive harvest was impacting the black sea bass population; during the early 2010s, I was catching a few fish that weighed between 3 ½ and 4 pounds on every trip; by the end of that decade, even 3-pound fish were few and far between on the wrecks that I fished off Long Island.

Thus, I was more than willing to ally with the plaintiffs in Natural Resources Defense Council v. Raimondo, a lawsuit that challenged the framework on the grounds that it would set recreational landings limits for black sea bass (as well as bluefish, summer flounder, and scup) high enough to exceed the annual catch limit and, at times, even the overfishing limit, provided the spawning stock biomass was at a high enough level of abundance. Unfortunately, the court issued an unexpected decision, finding that the annual catch limit required by Magnuson-Stevens wasn’t really a limit on harvest at all, but merely a level of catch that would trigger accountability measures, and that overfishing was something to be gauged over the long term; management measures that would cause the overfishing limit to be exceeded in any one year were not necessarily taboo, so long as that level of harvest didn’t impair the stock’s ability to produce MSY.

With that, the foundation of Magnuson-Stevens suffered a small crack.

Down in the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf Fisheries Management Council, at the urging of the recreational fishing industry and allied anglers’ rights organizations, adopted Amendment 50 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico (Amendment 50), which allows the states to set their own fishing seasons and, within specified limits, their own size and bag limits for red snapper, so long as the aggregate recreational landings did not exceed the annual recreational catch limit. Each state tracks recreational landings with its own data collection system, rather than using the same system used by the other states and by federal fisheries managers.

Under Amendment 50, recreational season lengths increased, and so did recreational red snapper landings, at least for a while. But now, party and charter boat captains are complaining that the seasons are too long, that they are now having to run farther and fish longer to catch a limit of fish, and that the size of the fish that they’re catching, particularly closer to shore, is shrinking noticeably.

The foundation of Magnuson-Stevens has cracked a little more.

Emboldened by its success with Amendment 50, the same coalition of angling industry and anglers’ rights organizations attacked federal management of red snapper off the South Atlantic states. Most of the red snapper fishing mortality in that region is caused by fish that die after being released by anglers when the red snapper season is closed. The extremely high level of release mortality forced the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to impose a very short 2-day season on the recreational sector in 2025. Even so, recreational effort was intense enough that anglers modestly overfished their 22,797-fish annual catch limit. In response, as they did in the Gulf of Mexico, the angling industry argued that states could manage the recreational red snapper fishery better than NMFS.

On May 1, NMFS issued exempted fishing permits granting the states management authority over South Atlantic red snapper. But unlike the exempted fishing permits that initiated the Amendment 50 process, those issued for South Atlantic red snapper did not limit recreational harvest to the annual catch limit, but rather exempted recreational red snapper fishermen from Magnuson-Stevens’ annual catch limit requirement. Last year’s two-day recreational red snapper season was replaced with a 39-day season off Florida and a 62-day season off North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. One large marine conservation organization predicted that those longer seasons could lead to a 2,000% increase in recreational red snapper landings.

A group of commercial fishermen are challenging the exempted fishing permits in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, the same federal court that upheld the framework. Three conservation groups, The Ocean Conservancy, Earthjustice, and the Environmental Defense Fund, have intervened in the action on behalf of the plaintiffs, while two angling industry/anglers’ rights groups, the American Sportfishing Association and the Coastal Conservation Association, have intervened in support of the exempted fishing permits.

The plaintiffs’ arguments were compelling enough that, on May 21, 2026, the trial court issued a preliminary injunction halting any fishing activities under the exempted fishing permits. That is good news, because a preliminary injunction is normally not issued unless a judge believes that the plaintiffs are likely to prevail once the merits of the case are argued, and because the outcome of the lawsuit may well foretell the future of Magnuson-Stevens.

Should the plaintiffs prevail, there is a good chance that the erosion of Magnuson-Stevens’ conservation standards can be controlled, if not halted, and that the law will still provide substantial and meaningful long-term protection for the United States’ fish stocks. However, should the issuance of the exempted fishing permits be upheld, the cracks already besetting the foundations of Magnuson-Stevens will only widen, perhaps to the point that its conservation mandates will, indeed, come crashing down.

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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/

IS THE SOUTH ATLANTIC RED SNAPPER POPULATION REALLY "LARGER THAN ANY PERSON ALIVE HAS EVER SEEN?"

 

Political debates can become intense, and there’s always a point, no matter who is involved, when the truth tends to get stretched beyond the point of recognition.

When the debate involves saltwater fisheries management, and the various angler advocacy organizations get involved, the standards for “truth” always seem to be set just a bit lower, and the stretching and distortion seem to get a bit worse.  Toss in the sort of politicians who are regularly associated with “alternative facts” and you can pretty well picture how things will turn out.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have written about the recreational red snapper fishery in the South Atlantic, and about how “anglers’ rights” groups like the Coastal Conservation Association and angling industry groups like the American Sportfishing Association and the Center for Sportfishing Policy have tried to overrule the professional fishery managers at the National Marine Fisheries Service in order to expand the South Atlantic’s recreational red snapper season and increase the recreational red snapper kill, by appealing to politicians like Florida’s Governor Ron Desantis, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and others close to President Donald Trump.  And I have written about how a federal district court judge in the District of Columbia has issued a temporary injunction, halting any fishing under the exempted fishing permits issued by NMFS that would have allowed the extended season, because their issuance was clearly illegal under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

I thought that, with the temporary injunction issued, I’d move away from South Atlantic red snapper for a while, and take a look at other fisheries issues elsewhere on the coast.  But just last Friday, a friend down in Maryland, who is also heavily involved in fisheries conservation matters, sent me a new research report that was too relevant to leave unreported, because it directly addresses one of the most-repeated assertions made by those trying to overturn federal red snapper management in the South Atlantic, and one of the greatest underpinnings of the argument to increase landings.

The Coastal Conservation Association made that assertion in a November, 2025 press release:

“the [South Atlantic red snapper] population [is] larger than any person alive has ever seen.”

 But there’s pretty strong evidence that’s just not true.

The report that my friend sent me was titled “Relative abundance of select reef fishes from Southeast Reef Fish Survey video data, 2011-2025.”  As the report itself explains,

“Reef fish species along the southeast United States Atlantic coast (hereafter, SEUS) have been monitored by the Marine Resources Monitoring, Assessment, and Prediction program (MARMAP) and the Southeast Reef Fish Survey (SERFS) with chevron traps since 1990.  These trap data have been central components of the stock assessments of many various fish species in the SEUS, and trap indices for a number of species have been summarized annually by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.  Beginning in 2011, video cameras were attached to all traps deployed region-wide by SERFS to provide additional information about reef fish relative abundance and seafloor habitat.  The goal of this report is to provide video-based indices of abundance for many reef fish species in the SEUS, which complements the summary of trap-based indices of abundance…  [citation omitted]”

One of the species included in the video data is Atlantic red snapper, with the data collected at numerous sites that extend from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to about halfway down the eastern coast of the Florida peninsula, and out to 100 meters (roughly 330 feet) of water. 

A graph summarizing the data collected between the start of the video survey in 2011 and the last complete year of data, 2025, looks like this:

 

The trajectory of the curve certainly doesn’t make it appear that “the [South Atlantic red snapper] population [was] larger than any person alive has ever seen” in 2025.  In fact, that graph makes it appear as if South Atlantic red snapper abundance might have peaked in 2022, and has been steadily sliding downhill ever since, so that in 2025, it was at its lowest level since 2016.

And, if that trajectory continues, abundance could decline even more this year.

Of course, the video data comes with some warnings.  The report advises, among other things, that

“Video-based indices of abundance are not an indication of stock status, the latter of which requires additional information such [as] landings, length and age composition, and life history parameters,”

and

“The ways in which video-based indices of abundance are standardized in this report (e.g., model selection, predictor variables included) may be different from those used in SEDAR stock assessments.”

So the above graph, constructed around such video-based indices, doesn’t tell us anything about whether the South Atlantic red snapper stock is healthy or at risk of becoming overfished—or whether it has become overfished already.  That’s up to the folks doing the stock assessments to decide, and we’ll find out what they’re thinking when SEDAR 90 is released sometime early next year.

But what the above graph can tell us is the trend in red snapper abundance, and it clearly shows that the South Atlantic red snapper video-based abundance index has declined by 30% or so between 2022 and 2025, and that such declining trend may well be continuing.

So no, we probably don’t currently have a larger South Atlantic red snapper population “than any person alive has ever seen,” if only because most people alive are more than three years old—even if some of the folks trying to extend the recreational red snapper season seem to reason like three-year-olds much of the time.

Still, it’s easy to argue that the video-based index is only one indicator of South Atlantic red snapper abundance, and that other indicators may reach other conclusions.  Thus, it’s only logical to turn to another recently-published report, “Reef fish trends in relative abundance from a fishery-independent survey in waters off the southeastern United States,” which uses data generated from the Southeast Reef Fish Chevron Trap Survey, as conducted during the years 1990-2019 and 2021-2025. 

That report provides a 35-year time series (interrupted only in 2020 due to the COVID 19 pandemic) of relative abundance of multiple species, including Atlantic red snapper, and provides a reliable baseline against which to gauge current red snapper abundance.  The underlying survey is deemed “fishery-independent” data, meaning that its data is collected solely by researchers, without any reference to catch or landings by the commercial or recreational fisheries.  That is a very important consideration for the tightly-regulated South Atlantic red snapper, as

“Fishery-dependent (FD) measures of abundance, such as fishery landings, are affected by management actions and industry practices, making it difficult to separate population level responses from changes in fishery behavior and management actions in FD data.  Fishery-independent (FI) data are collected in a way that is independent of regulations such as minimum size limits, seasons, and quotas imposed on industries for managed species.  When fisheries are highly regulated, FI surveys often become the only method available to adequately characterize population size, age and length compositions, and reproductive parameters, all of which are needed to access the status of stocks.  The use of adequate FI data also decreases assessment uncertainty over FD information alone.”

The Chevron Trap Survey is conducted at multiple locations between Cape Hatteras and St. Lucie Inlet, Florida.  It has also generated a relative abundance index of Atlantic red snapper, based on the number of fish caught in the chevron traps.  A graph of that index, depicting relative abundance between 1990 and 2025, looks like this:

 

It’s not exactly the same curve that we see for the video-based index, but once again, we see the highest relative abundance—presumably coinciding with the population’s peak—in 2023 (based on the point estimate) or 2018 (the peak of the normalized curve), and then a steep decline in relative abundance in the past few years, to levels last seen in 2015 (based on the normalized curve) or 2014 (based on the point estimate). 

Either way, the chevron trap data seems to confirm that the South Atlantic red snapper population in 2025 was not larger “than any person alive has ever seen,” and given the steepness of the decline, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that abundance will be even lower in 2026—and very possibly beyond.

That trend strongly suggests that 2026 is probably the wrong time to provide anglers a longer season, that will almost certainly lead to them overfishing the red snapper resource.

Those arguing for a longer recreational red snapper season might try to argue that, because the video cameras are mounted on chevron traps, that the two indices of abundance are measuring the same thing, and so are not really different surveys.  However, the scientists who produced the last South Atlantic red snapper stock assessment in 2021 disagree:

“The working group recommended dome-shaped selectivity for the chevron trap index and flat-topped selectivity for the video index.  Those recommendations were adopted in the assessment, and the two indices were input as separate time series.”

What that means is that the two indices measure the abundance of different age classes of fish.  The chevron traps tend to capture a few age classes of fish (generally, fish less than 600mm—about 24 inches—long and perhaps four years old), and under-sample older and larger fish.  The video cameras, on the other hand, probably miss some of the older/younger fish, but once snapper grow large enough to be readily detected in the videos, continue to provide good samples of fish throughout the older/larger age classes, although their ability to determine the precise size and age of fish more than ten years old may be questionable.

So, when both the chevron trap index and the video-based index show a sharp decline in South Atlantic red snapper numbers, that suggests that the decline might be occurring in multiple age/size classes.

That could be significant, because the 2021 stock assessment informs us that

“Total estimated abundance was…at its highest level at the end of the time series, comparable to estimates in the 1950s and 1960s, but with a more truncated age structure…The highest recruitment values were predicted to have occurred in the mid-1960s, 2006-2008, and in the terminal six years of the assessment (2014-2019).”

All of that is consistent with the pattern shown in both graphs of relative abundance, with South Atlantic red snapper abundance rising rapidly after 2014, when a period of high recruitment began, and peaking right around the time that the stock assessment was released.  While that recent high abundance might not actually have been higher “than any person alive has ever seen,” since it was “comparable to estimates in the 1950s and 1960s,” and plenty of folks alive today, including myself, were alive to see things back then, it was still a very solid level of abundance.  However, the late 2010s South Atlantic red snapper population differed from that of the 1950s and 1960s in one critical respect:  It had “a more truncated age structure,” and age structure has a major impact on the fecundity of the stock.

The stock assessment states that

“Spawning stock biomass is modeled as population fecundity (number of eggs).”

So even though South Atlantic red snapper abundance, measured in numbers of fish, might have been about as high in 2019 as it was in the 1950s and 1960s, because the age/size structure of the population was truncated, and the current population made up mostly of younger, smaller fish, by some of the most critical measures, including biomass and, most importantly, the number of eggs produced, the population remaines at relatively low and arguably unsustainable levels, as the two graphs below show.

 

Given those facts, the claim that “the [South Atlantic red snapper] population [is] larger than any person alive has ever seen” becomes essentially meaningless, even if it were true, because abundance alone doesn’t tell the whole story.

Still, if the graphs correctly captured the increase in red snapper abundance leading up to the last stock assessment, there’s no reason to believe that they didn’t also accurately capture an abundance decline in the years since, so the claim about the largest population anyone alive has ever seen is most probably wrong.

Even so, the proponents of a larger South Atlantic recreational red snapper kill aren’t likely to go away quietly.  They will argue that “the science is bad,” and try to obfuscate the truth by attacking the video and chevron trap data, while referencing other studies that suggest that the South Atlantic red snapper population is larger than the stock assessment reveals.

But this is when red snapper become red herrings.

Because, when assessing fish stocks, absolute population abundance is less important than population trends.  The models used to assess stocks can change, certain data previously used may be excluded from future data runs, and new data streams may be added.  Assumptions about natural mortality and the survival of released fish may change.  And when that happens, the estimate of total abundance—both present and past—may change as well, even though the status of the stock remains the same.

But even when model and/or some of the underlying assumptions change the estimates of spawning stock biomass, the trends in biomass and fish abundance generally remain close to the same.  Regardless of the models used, a declining trend ought to be cause for concern.

The plain truth is that we don’t know, with any certainty, how many red snapper were swimming off the South Atlantic coast in the mid-1950s, when the population reached a peak.  We don’t know how many were swimming around during the lows of the 1990s, during the recent highs of the late 2010s or, for that matter, how many are swimming around today.  The best we can do is review the data and provide a reasonable estimate.

But what we do know is that at least two long-term indices of abundance are showing that there are fewer red snapper swimming off the South Atlantic today than there were even four years ago.

And that means that when someone tells you that “the [South Atlantic red snapper] population [is] larger than any person alive has ever seen,” they are also probably telling you a very intentional lie.

 

 

 

 

 

WHY DID A COURT DECIDE TO ENJOIN THE SOUTH ATLANTIC RED SNAPPER EFPS?

 

Bottom fishermen throughout eastern Florida felt growing excitement as Memorial Day weekend approached, and the state’s anticipated 39-day South Atlantic red snapper season.

For well over a decade, there had been few opportunities for anglers to target red snapper.  The fish were abundant and willing to bite, and It turned out that was a problem, because recreational fishermen kept catching, and unintentionally killing, red snapper while fishing for other species, even when the red snapper season was closed.  Things got so bad that, out of the 509,000-fish annual catch limit, 475,000 were allocated to dead discards (almost all of which were generated by anglers), while just 22,797 were set aside for anglers to keep and take home, with the remainder allocated to the commercial fishery.

Because they never managed to get their dead discards under control, the recreational red snapper season could only be open for one or two days.  Any longer, and overfishing would be the result.

Thus, the recreational fishing industry and the anglers’ rights community tried to win themselves an extended fishing season, and larger red snapper landings—even at the price of increased fishing mortality—by convincing state and federal regulators that the National Marine Fisheries Service should issue exempted fishing permits to the states, ostensibly to test new approaches to data collection, which would also allow anglers to ignore the annual red snapper catch limit, fish for an extended period, and bring more red snapper home.

Those permits were issued on May 1.  On May 5, members of the commercial fishing industry filed a legal action seeking to enjoin the operation of the permits, arguing that recreational fishing pursuant to the permits would cause the South Atlantic red snapper stock to be overfished, causing harm to those members of the commercial fishing industry who also harvest red snapper.  On May 21, just hours before Florida’s expanded recreational season for South Atlantic red snapper was to open, a judge sitting on the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia issued a preliminary injunction which halted fishing activity pursuant to the exempted fishing permits until the matter can be decided on its merits.

The injunction enraged many of the anglers hoping to fish the next day, along with charter boat operators who suffered last-minute cancellations not only for the scheduled opening day of the season, but for the month that followed.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was particularly vocal, saying

“I mean, think about it, how disrespectful is it to rule when people have already made plans to come down and do this…And look, a lot of it’s local, but there’s a lot of people that may have been the determining factor in them doing Memorial Day weekend and on the east coast of Florida, when maybe they would have gone someplace else.”

Elsewhere on the Internet, we saw anglers blame the judge, commercial fishermen, commercial fish dealers, and NOAA Fisheries.  One unhappy angler made the remarkable statement that

“The federal government nor the state government have a lawful right to restrict the gathering of food in state or federal water of individual citizens of the United States.”

However, he provided no legal citations to support his position, and a quick check of his profile confirmed that he was not an attorney, but rather the head of a company that earned its profits by cutting down trees, so his views on legal issues probably ought to be taken with at least one grain of salt.

Yet the question remains:  Who bears the real onus for any harm done by the eleventh-hour closure of Florida’s recreational season for South Atlantic red snapper?

A thoughtful look at the issue reveals that the true source of the damage isn’t who or what most anglers think.

Let’s look first at the judge’s decision granting the preliminary injunction. 

The Federal Bar Association, a professional organization of those who practice within the federal court system, notes that

“Through fair and impartial judgments, the federal courts interpret and apply the law to resolve disputes.  The courts do not enact the laws, that is the responsibility of Congress…The judicial branch…has the authority to decide the constitutionality of federal laws and resolve other disputes over federal laws.”

The judge’s responsibility in Southeast Fisheries Association v. Lutnick—the suit challenging the South Atlantic red snapper exempted fishing permits—was thus to “interpret and apply” the law governing the issues raised by the parties, and to “resolve [their] disputes over federal law.

The federal laws in question in the action were the Administrative Procedures Act, which governs agency action and the judicial review thereof, and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which among many other things, directed the Secretary of Commerce to

“promulgate regulations that create an expedited, uniform, and regionally-based process to promote issuance, where practicable, of experimental [not “exempted”] fishing permits.  [emphasis added].”

Magnuson-Stevens also includes a congressional finding that

“a national program for the conservation and management of the fishery resources of the United States is necessary to prevent overfishing,  [emphasis added]”

requires that

“Conservation and management measures shall prevent overfishing,  [emphasis added]”

states that every fishery management plan shall

“contain the conservation and management measures, applicable to foreign fishing and fishing by vessels of the United States, which are necessary and appropriate for the conservation and management of the fishery to prevent overfishing.  [emphasis added, formatting omitted]”

Another provision of Magnuson-Stevens requires regional fishery management councils, in each fishery management plan that they approve, to

“establish a mechanism for specifying annual catch limits in the plan (including a multiyear plan), implementing regulations, of annual specifications, at a level such that overfishing does not occur in the fishery, including measures to ensure accountability.  [emphasis added]”

Preventing or ending overfishing is mentioned in various other provisions of the law.  In passing Magnuson-Stevens, Congress established a very clear policy that overfishing was not to be tolerated in the fisheries of the United States.

So the question for the judge was whether the National Marine Fisheries Service could issue exempted fishing permits, under the experimental fishing permit provision, that might upend that policy against overfishing and allow overfishing to occur so long as the exempted fishing permit was in force.

NMFS acted as if it could, issuing exempted fishing permits that expressly exempted recreational red snapper fishermen in the four South Atlantic states from the regulation

“that specifies the annual catch limit and accountability measures applicable to the recreational harvest of red snapper.”

And the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission argued that NMFS could, writing, in a letter to Commerce Secretary Lutnik, that

“there is nothing in the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) that dictates an EFP’s harvest be included in annual catch limits.”

The plaintiffs, however, disagreed, and argued that

“The factual record establishes that under the challenged permits, red snapper landings in 2026 will substantially exceed the stock’s annual catch limit.  The record also establishes that under the challenged permits, fishing mortality in 2026 will be so high as to cause overfishing on South Atlantic red snapper…

“Preventing overfishing, managing stocks under annual catch limits, and ensuring fair and equitable allocations are core requirements of the Manguson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act…

“The Magnuson-Stevens Act nowhere allows Defendents to waive the statutory requirements for annual catch limit management, preventing overfishing, and fair and equitable allocations—whether through the use of ‘exempted fishing permits’ or otherwise.  [numbering omitted]”

Judge Rudolph Contreras’ job—his only job—was to apply the law to the undisputed facts in the case, and decide which side should prevail.

On May 21, he handed down his decision.

In that decision, he noted that

“Traditional tools of statutory analysis show that any EFPs the NMFS issues must comply with the [Magnuson-Stevens Act].  The MSA created a [c]ooperative research and management program…to address needs identified under [Chapter 38 of Title 16 of the United States Code and any other marine resource laws enforced by the Secretary [of Commerce].  Chapter 38, titled ‘Fishery Conservation and Management,’ identifies several such needs, one of which includes placing fishery resources ‘under sound management’ ‘before overfishing [causes] irreversible effects.’  It also identifies another need: [t]he collection of reliable data’ for ‘the effective conservation, management, and scientific understanding of the fishery resources of the United States.’  In turn, Section 1867(d) of the MSA authorizes the Secretary to issue ‘experimental permit[s].’  Under 50 C.F.R. [section] 600.745(b), the Secretary promulgated such a process.  Under that process, the NMFS may issue EFPs ‘for limited testing, public display, data collection, exploratory fishing, compensation fishing, conservation engineering, health and safety surveys, environmental cleanup, and/or hazard removal purposes,’ if a target or incidental harvest of a species managed under a fishery management plan or fishery regulations is prohibited (e.g., South Atlantic red snapper).

“Therefore, at a minimum, each EFP the agency issues—including data collection projects—must ‘address’ (i.e., ‘to give attention to or deal with a matter or problem’) the ‘needs’ (i.e., ‘necessary dut[ies] or obligation[s]’) Congress identified within Chapter 38, several of which emphasize the need to prevent overfishing.  This is evident from the plain language of the statutes concerning EFPs, their titles, and their place within the overall statutory scheme.

“It is also consistent with the NMFS longstanding practice and understanding of EFPs.  When Congress amended MSA to create a ‘[c]ooperative research and management program,’ and directed the Secretary to create an ‘[e]xperimental fishing permitting process,’ the NMFS explained that ‘[a]ny permit issued by NMFS is a Federal action, and as such must comply with any and all applicable laws…’

“…[A]s Amicus Curiae notes, in a prior EFP concerning red snapper, the NMFS has explicitly stated that this permit ‘does not exempt’ participants from the requirements of the MSA, including the requirement under 16 U.S.C. 1883(d), which prohibits the harvest of red snapper for the remainder of the fishing year if the red snapper recreational quota is met, even if the EFP participants have allocation remaining.  Therefore, in addition to the relevant statutes, the Government’ [sic] own practices indicate that EFPs must be consistent with the requirements of the MSA…

“Because Section 1867 requires EFPs to be consistent with the MSA, as explained above, the NFMSA [sic] must consider whether granting an EFP application would lead to overfishing or implicate other conservation concerns.  The regulations governing EFPs require the NMFD to do the same.  Plaintiffs, however, contend that the Government granted the States’ EFP applications without grappling with evidence that the EFPs would lead to overfishing.  The Court agrees, the Government ‘failed to consider an important aspect of the problem’ and thus ‘offered an explanation for its decision that runs counter to evidence before the agency.’

“In February 2026, the Government placed a notice on the Federal Register that it had received, and was considering, the States’ four exempted fishing permit applications.  In response to the notice, the Government received public comments, some of which expressed significant concern with the EFP applications…

“…[C]ommenters argued that the proposed EFPs would undermine existing federal protections for South Atlantic red snapper by allowing substantially more fish to be taken than current limits permit.  According to the commenters, the existing catch limits and overfishing thresholds are based on the amount of fishing-related mortality the stock can sustain and already reflect current fishing levels.  The commenters further argued that, whereas the recreational red snapper season had recently lasted only one to three days, the EFPs would extend the season to as many as 39 days in Florida and 62 days in the other states, thereby substantially increasing fishing mortality.  Thus, the commenters contended that the existing limits do not account for such dramatically expanded recreational seasons and would likely result in overfishing…

“Furthermore, the NMFS granted the States’ EFP applications, despite the applications being incomplete.  The regulations require ‘an applicant for an EFP to submit a completed application to the appropriate Regional Administrator or Director,’ and the ‘application package must include…[t]he species (target and incidental) expected to be harvested under the EFP, [and] the amount(s) of such harvest necessary to conduct the exempted fishing.’  And ‘[a]n incomplete application…will not be considered until corrected in writing.’  Despite this requirement, the NMFS granted the incomplete applications.

“The NMFS initially recognized this deficiency and requested that the applicants ‘throw out a number,’ for consideration, but Florida, for instance, refused, stating that ‘the EFP is not predicated on a number of fish, and for [NMFS] to request a number—even an estimated number—is inappropriate and unnecessary.  The other States also refused, some expressing concern that any harvest number would be used to shorten the season…

“But the agency’s own regulations require applicants to provide this information and an application without it ‘will not be considered.’  It is ‘axiomatic…that an agency is bound by its own regulations.’…So, if an ‘agency fails to comply with its own regulations,’ the relevant action ‘may be set aside as arbitrary and capricious.’  By granting the applications without the inclusion of harvest estimates, as required under the regulations, the Government acted arbitrarily and capriciously.

“Finally, while the Court agrees with the Government that Congress, through Section 1867(d), authorized the NMFS to ‘create an expedited, uniform, and regionally-based process to promote issuance, when practicable, of experimental fishing permits,’ the Court does not find that Congress gave the Government unbridled discretion to circumvent MSA and the fishery management plan framework through the EFP process.  ‘Congress does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions—it does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouseholes.  And it is more than a little doubtful that Congress would have tucked into the particular mousehole of [Section 1867(b)] an elephant that tramples the work done by [the MSA and the fishery management plans].’  As Amicus Curiae aptly observes, ‘nothing in [Section 1867(b)]…give[s] the [NMFS] general authority to exempt fishing activities from any legal requirements…let alone indicate[s] that Congress meant for [EFPs] to become a vehicle to deregulate fisheries.’…As explained above, EFPs must ‘address’ the ‘needs’ identified under the MSA—not provide an escape hatch from them.  Such needs include the overarching requirement that fisheries be managed to prevent and end overfishing.  [emphasis added, citations omitted]”

The decision appears well-reasoned, and seems to proceed logically from well-established law.  The Court was confronted with what appears to be an illegal agency action, which violates both the letter and the spirit of Magnuson-Stevens, and the agency’s own regulations as well.  In such an event, the preliminary injunction, although always issued at the discretion of the court, is a very appropriate remedy.

But the analysis of why the Plaintiffs prevailed shouldn’t stop there.

While the Exempted Fishing Permits were supposedly issued

“to pilot test state data collection and management strategies,”

the words of the EFP proponents themselves make it clear that the state EFP proposals were all about anglers being able to harvest more red snapper, and that testing new approaches to recreational data collection was, at best, a secondary consideration.

A press release issued by the Coastal Conservation Association, the largest and most aggressive of the anglers’ rights groups pushing for the EPFs, last November, describes their effort:

“The South Atlantic states are charting their own course.  For too long, federal management kept anglers tied to the dock, while a thriving red snapper population swam just outside reach.

“Frustrated red snapper anglers have waited a long time to see a light at the end of the tunnel and this week they got the news they’ve been waiting to hear.  All four South Atlantic states submitted exempted fishing permit applications yesterday to the  U.S. Secretary of Commerce to commence state management of South Atlantic red snapper.

“’If you look at what has happened to Atlantic red snapper in the last four years—two days for recreational red snapper in 2022.  Two days in 2023.  One day in 2024.  Two days in 2025.  This is not acceptable,’ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a press conference on Monday in Fernandina Beach, Fla.  ‘The problem is the states have not been given the responsibility to manage Atlantic red snapper…’

“South Atlantic red snapper is presently managed by NOAA through the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council.  The fishery has come under intense scrutiny in recent years as recreational fishing seasons have been limited to one or two days—and often closed entirely—despite the population being larger than any person alive has ever seen.  Draconian federal restrictions arise from high levels of uncertainty in recreational catch data collected by the federal government.

“The exempted fishing permits…from North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida outline state-based methodologies for improving recreational data and harvest access while still providing necessary conservation…  [emphasis added]”

Yes, recreational data collection is mentioned, but the thrust of the comments are not improving the data, but increasing the recreational season, so that anglers are no longer “kept…tied to the dock.”

Supporting comments quoted in the press release continue the theme.

Jeff Angers, president of the Center for Sportfishing Policy, complained that

“The South Atlantic has long been trapped in a broken federal bureaucratic system that limits opportunity to access a plentiful public resource.  [emphasis added]”

He didn’t mention data collection at all.

The American Sportfishing Association’s Martha Guyas did mention data, but only in a secondary way, saying

“ASA is incredibly thankful to the South Atlantic states for recognizing the importance of the red snapper fishery to anglers, coastal communities, and the economy of our region…The proposed EFPs are a critical step in not only restoring recreational harvest opportunities but also advancing much needed data collection improvements that can inform better management moving forward.  [emphasis added]”

The wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing nature of the EFP applications becomes even more evident in the language used by the South Atlantic states.  A letter from the executive director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, provides the best example, which noted that

“On November 10, 2025, FWC formally submitted Florida’s South Atlantic Red Snapper EFP that, upon approval, will allow for a 39-day season for Red Snapper in the South Atlantic, a clear improvement from the two-day federal season in 2025.”

Note what the letter does not say; it doesn’t say that the EFP, if granted, “will allow Florida to test a new data collection methodology.”  It says that the EFP “will allow for a 39-day season,” because that was the primary reason the EFP was being requested.  Testing improved data collection methods was only an excuse—an effort to cloak the state’s goal of killing more red snapper in an arguably more attractive disguise.

The letter goes on a bit later, telling Secretary Lutnick that,

“Given the social, economic, and cultural importance of recreational fishing in Florida, we greatly appreciate your leadership in seeing Florida’s application through to approval so Floridians can enjoy their God-given rights to recreate, and enjoy, our natural resources.  [emphasis in original]”

Still no mention of improving data collection.  Later on in the letter, as noted above, the Florida FWC argues that nothing in Magnuson-Stevens “dictates” that fish caught under an exempted fishing permit be “included in annual catch limits,” then argues that Florida should not be required to estimate the number of red snapper that will be killed pursuant to the EFP, because

“The Florida EFP limits harvest by number of fishing days and other fishery management tools, e.g. bag and aggregate bag limits.”

There would be no hard cap on the total number of red snapper killed.

Then, although the use of EFPs in the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery was frequently cited favorably by proponents of South Atlantic EFPs, Florida made it clear that it didn’t intend to adhere closely to the Gulf approach, because

“In the South Atlantic, dead discards are directly taken ‘off the top’ of the Red Snapper [annual catch limit], reducing allowable recreational harvest from 365,404 fish to 22,797 fish. In the Gulf of America, discards are not ‘taken off the top,’ providing significantly more harvest opportunities…Simply put, if Florida was to base our response on a ‘quota’, state-led management would be near impossible.  [emphasis added]”

And since the whole point of the Florida exempted fishing permit was to provide “significantly more harvest opportunities,” and escape the science-based annual catch limits imposed by NMFS, not being held to a quota of any kind was of prime importance.

Eventually, Florida’s letter did get around to mentioning data collection, first to complain that

“much of NOAA’s response [to the initial application for an exempted fishing permit] appears to potentially delay action under the guise of ‘data’ collection, [emphasis in original]”

and then to whine that

“based on…the continued reference to ‘data collection and research’ it is clear that NOAA’s initial review is not from the lens of flexibility.”

The Florida letter eventually criticized the federal data collection program and praised Florida’s counterpart, finally stating that the “primary impetus” behind the EFPs was

“to generate improved, regionally consistent information necessary to better quantify recreational fishing effort and discards for Red Snapper throughout the South Atlantic,”

before getting back to discussing

“The low recreational catch limit of 22,797 fish.”

That sort of language emphasizing longer seasons and higher landings, from both the EFP proponents and from the states, provides more than adequate reason to believe that the primary purpose of the EFPs was to create a mechanism that would allow recreational fishermen to exceed the annual South Atlantic red snapper catch limit with impunity.

And it was those states and EFP proponents who pulled the political levers necessary to convince—or, perhaps more accurately, compel—NMFS to issue the EFPs.  And it was those states and EFP proponents who are ultimately responsible for the chaos and any economic harm that followed the Court’s issuance of an injunction.

For as Judge Contreras determined, “EFPs must ‘address’ the ‘needs’ identified under the MSA—not provide an escape hatch from them.”

Since the South Atlantic red snapper EFPs did not address such needs, but were merely a ploy to allow anglers to overfish, they were illegal and thus were enjoined.

Those who initially supported the illegal EFPs now express outrage.

They should be expressing embarrassment instead.