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·
1979, the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council
(Gulf Council) determined that red snapper stocks were overfished.
An estimated 87 percent drop in recreational harvest from 1980 to 1984
prompted the Gulf Council to create its “Reef Fish Management Plan.”
This program became law in 1984 and was implemented by National Marine
Fisheries Service (NMFS) in the late 1980s. ·
To reach the desired stock number, fisheries managers
continued to tighten the belt of commercial and recreational anglers yet
were unable to implement bycatch reduction devices (BRDs) to reduce
commercial Gulf shrimpers’ impact on juvenile red snapper numbers.
A 1990 congressional mandate prevented BRDs
from being required in federal waters.
·
Reauthorization of the Magnuson Act into the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act in 1996 includes
components needed for the prevention of overfishing, addressing
the issue of bycatch, and rebuilding overfished fisheries. A floor
amendment allowed the Gulf Council to now treat shrimp-fishery bycatch
like any other in the country.
·
An
amendment added to the law changed the recreational red snapper
“allotment” to a “quota.” The law requires NMFS to close a fishery when
its “quota” is reached. Thus, this change in terminology resulted in the
1997, 1998, and 1999 recreational closures for red snapper when the
total allowable catch (TAC) was reached.
·
In
1998, the Gulf Council passes an
amendment to require BRDs for shrimp trawls in federal waters. The Texas
Shrimp Association sued in opposition to the bycatch reduction
requirements and CCA intervened in the lawsuit
to ensure that the shrimp
industry would have to do its part.
·
In late 2004, CCA’s consultant to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery
Management Council alerted the organization to the upcoming red snapper
stock assessment and warned that the results were likely to be dismal
enough to warrant a reduction in the Total Allowable Catch (TAC).
At the same time, recreational and commercial anglers had stayed at or
below their quotas for the previous three years.
· The problem? Shrimp trawl bycatch reduction devices (BRDs)
mandated in 1998 were supposed to reduce bycatch of red snapper in
the shrimp industry by at least 40 percent. However, studies in early
2004 by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) revealed that BRDs
had achieved only a 12 percent reduction. Noncompliance by the shrimping
industry was cited as the main reason for the BRDs’ failure to achieve
the target reduction. Every year more than 80 percent of juvenile red
snapper are caught and killed in shrimp trawls at an average size of 4
inches.
· In response, CCA petitioned the Secretary of Commerce in
March of 2005 to put emergency measures into effect to end the
overfishing of red snapper by the Gulf of Mexico shrimp fleet to prevent
recreational anglers from having to bear the brunt of red snapper
recovery measures yet again. The measures include bycatch quotas, areas
closed to shrimping, seasonal shrimping closures and effort reduction
measures, to achieve significant bycatch reduction on the order of 60-80
percent.
· In June of 2005, the Department of Commerce conceded that
shrimp trawl bycatch is the largest source of red snapper mortality in
the Gulf and that current efforts to reduce bycatch have fallen well
short of targeted goals.
· In July of 2005, the Southeast Data, Assessment and Review (SEDAR)
Gulf of Mexico Red Snapper Advisory Report finds that found that the
shrimp fishery in recent years has annually taken roughly 24-45 million
red snapper, mainly from the western Gulf. Recreational and commercial
fisheries combined which target red snapper have taken roughly four
million of the fish annually. Further, the Report states current
spawning potential is estimated to be less than 5 percent of unfished
levels in both the eastern and western Gulf.
· Around this same time, the National Marine Fisheries Service
releases Amendment 22 to the Reef Fish Management Plan, also known as
the Red Snapper Rebuilding Plan. Citing its failure to include any
bycatch reduction standards or regulations for the shrimp industry to
prevent overfishing of red snapper, CCA filed suit in United States
District Court in Houston.
· CCA’s petition before the Secretary of
Commerce was denied shortly after the government published Amendment 22,
despite almost 8,000 supporting comments from Gulf Coast CCA members.
· In August and September of 2005, hurricanes Rita and Katrina
slam into Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas, decimating the
shrimp fleet and commercial fishing infrastructure. The impact of the
hurricanes on shrimping effort is difficult to gauge, but it is
undoubtedly significant. While effort in the coming years will
surely be down significantly, decades of over-capitalization of the
shrimp fleet have left their mark on red snapper populations.
Additionally, it is very likely effort will trend back to its
pre-hurricane levels in the absence of any meaningful regulations to
right-size the fleet.
· In May of 2006, citing the government’s history of failure
to restore red snapper populations in the Gulf of Mexico, CCA files a
motion for summary judgment that asks U.S. District Court in Houston to
order the National Marine Fisheries Service to establish significant
regulations on shrimp trawl bycatch to recover Gulf red snapper stocks.
· In August of 2006, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management
Council elects to delay any action plan for the recovery of red
snapper until January 2007. The delay stemmed from the refusal of the
National Marine Fisheries Service to support the inclusion of measures
to reduce shrimp trawl bycatch as a part of a proposed red snapper
recovery plan. CCA has insisted that red snapper TAC and reductions in
shrimp trawl bycatch are measures that must be considered at the same
time.
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