Coastal Conservation Association (CCA)

At the August meeting of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, the Council was slated to address the highly contentious issue of red snapper management, continuing an almost two-decade-long show in the best and (mostly) the worst of fisheries management. This most-recent episode in the saga actually ended with another question mark and not an exclamation point after the Council chose to table any action until January. That may sound like a disaster tantamount to putting off treatment for a problem that is rapidly accelerating, and that may be true. But in this case, the action may have been worse than the stall.

To deal with red snapper management, you have to understand the role of commercial shrimp management in the Gulf. The two management plans are inseparable. Shrimp trawl bycatch has historically been the single largest drain on red snapper stocks by a long shot. Actually, if all recreational and commercial anglers collectively decided to stop fishing for red snapper, it would still take decades to recover this species due to perennial over-harvest by the Gulf shrimp fleet.

I recently heard a great analogy from Dr. Russell Nelson (CCA’s Gulf fisheries consultant). If you were trying to deal with an energy consumption problem in your house and your air conditioner consumed 80-percent of the energy while your aquarium heater consumed 2-percent, which one are you going to fix?

This imagery is viable on a number of levels. The shrimp bycatch impact on red snapper stocks has historically been about 80 percent, and the take from recreational anglers is in the low single digits. Clearly, the aquarium heater is not your problem. Additionally, the imagery applies in that the highest consumptive part of anything (be it a home appliance or fisheries user group) is usually the messiest to address. Be it a leaky air conditioner or a politically connected shrimp fleet, no one ever seems to want that hassle.

CCA issued a press release shortly after the conclusion of the Council meeting expressing disappointment in the continuing reluctance of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to address shrimp trawl bycatch as the primary cause for the decline of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. NMFS’ refusal to support the inclusion of measures to reduce shrimp trawl bycatch as a part of a proposed red snapper recovery plan left the Council with no choice but to postpone any action. Thus, a show about nothing.

The thing that only the insiders really know is that if NMFS had pushed forward, and the Council had not tabled action, we could have possibly seen dramatic action taken on recreational anglers and no action taken to address the shrimp fleet. This would have left the recreational angler to carry the weight in the management of this species...again.

CCA Government Relations Committee Chairman Fred Miller summed it up. “Since this fishery was first identified as severely overfished in 1988, recreational red snapper anglers have seen their seasons shortened and bag limits tightened while the shrimp industry has largely been allowed to dodge their responsibility for this mess.”

NMFS’ own studies show that shrimp trawl bycatch has been far and away the single largest source of mortality for juvenile red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. If we ever want to see a viable management plan for this species, it will have to include bycatch. So with the last show behind us, we can all eagerly await the next episode. Hopefully, if all goes well, maybe someone will remember to include shrimp bycatch in the next show’s script.