By Ted Venker
Conservation Director
Coastal Conservation Association
When South Atlantic red snapper was first found to be overfished in 2010 – after the first contemporary stock assessment in its history in 2008 – NOAA Fisheries threatened to close the entire bottom of the South Atlantic Ocean to prevent any red snapper harvest, even as bycatch. Anglers narrowly avoided that management catastrophe when an exceptionally large year class of young snapper was detected entering the fishery. The bottom remained open, but red snapper seasons remained closed for years.
Flashing forward, that one exceptionally large year class was followed by an unprecedented run of spawning success that exceeded all expectations year after year. The fishery was rebuilding faster than any model predicted, and soon anglers had trouble not catching a red snapper offshore even when targeting other species. Despite the recovering population, the fishery remained closed or open for just a few days a year.
With the health of the fishery no longer in doubt, another problem presented itself. NOAA’s notoriously suspect recreational data system indicated astronomical levels of red snapper bycatch mortality in the recreational sector. NOAA’s models say that the snapper that anglers catch when they are fishing for other species that do not survive release are enough to overfish the red snapper population. For the last couple years, NOAA has again stridently pushed for bottom closures to prevent even bycatch mortality of red snapper. This time, it’s not because there are too few snapper; ironically, it’s because there are too many.
The confusing situation is exacerbated by NOAA’s Amendment 59 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery in 2024 that revealed the South Atlantic red snapper fishery is no longer overfished or undergoing overfishing. It has rebuilt about 20 years ahead of schedule. In most fisheries, that equates to a liberalization of regulations and greater access for anglers. That’s not the case in the South Atlantic, where seasons remain measured in hours and NOAA continues to ominously rattle its bottom-closure saber.
Throughout this saga, many have questioned NOAA’s recreational data. NOAA itself admitted in 2023 that significant flaws in its recreational survey could be overstating recreational harvest and effort by up to 40 percent in some fisheries, an issue that still has not been resolved. Others have questioned how a fishery that is allegedly under so much duress from incredibly high levels of bycatch mortality can continue to expand and rebuild 20 years ahead of schedule. Those two conclusions are generally mutually exclusive in fisheries management.
In the fog of contradictory red snapper information coming from NOAA, the beacon of state management in the Gulf has caught the attention of the South Atlantic states. After decades of similar chaos in its red snapper fishery, the Gulf states took over recreational data collection and management from NOAA in 2018 provisionally, and then permanently in 2020. Gulf seasons have gone from three days to several months, and angler satisfaction is at an all-time high.
Frustrated by the lack of clarity, elected officials in the Southeast have made their desires known. In the last few months, South Atlantic governors and Congressional delegations have voiced their support for state management in letters to NOAA and the Secretary of Commerce. A bipartisan group of congressmen from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina have formed the House South Atlantic Red Snapper Task Force to improve data collection, expand state authority and secure longer, more predictable seasons. After more than a year of work, the directors of the four state marine fisheries agencies recently released the outline of a plan for state-based recreational data gathering and management of South Atlantic red snapper.
But even as the wheels are turning towards a state solution, NOAA career staff refuse to participate or even acknowledge it. The agency has promoted bottom closures ostensibly to recover red snapper in 2010, 2022 and 2024, and each time a massive public outcry has prevented a closure from being implemented – and red snapper have still recovered 20 years ahead of schedule! At the September Council meeting, incredibly, NOAA staff tried again – laying out plans for “reverse marine protected areas” and “partial open seasons” which appear to be not-so-clever word plays to describe a future in which large areas are closed to bottom fishing, but some areas may be open at the discretion of a federal bureaucrat. The agency apparently can’t conceive a future without closures.
And of course, NOAA played its favorite card, declaring yet again that there are just too many anglers and that they must be allowed to decide which few Americans can fish while the majority cannot…even though it has no system to track how many anglers actually fish offshore.
Finally, NOAA even complained about how hard the process is to move to state data and management. Thankfully, a representative from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries was present at the South Atlantic Council meeting and stated the obvious: there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. The Gulf states have been down this path. Louisiana, in particular, is happy to share its state data system – LA Creel – which is a complete, functioning replacement for the federal data system. The Florida state agency representative to the Council was eloquent in her explanation of how the Sunshine State’s data collection system works. Florida extended their Gulf system to the Atlantic five years ago, so they are ready to lead the way right now. There is zero reason for NOAA bureaucrats to be fear-mongering about state management.
To the recreational angling community, the divergent paths here are deeply confusing. On the one hand, the state agencies, governors and Congressional delegations are casting their vote for state management and a new path to the future. On the other hand, the federal bureaucracy that created chaos in the red snapper fishery over the last two decades is doubling down on closure threats, its decrepit data system and its tried-but-failed tactics in the South Atlantic.
Federal bureaucrats in the South Atlantic have had decades – whole careers – to get recreational fisheries management right, and it has ultimately led to doubletalk of “partial open seasons” and “reverse marine protected areas” and state management that is “too hard to be useful.” It is now time for the states to figure it out on their own, without interference and obfuscation from those who have failed us. NOAA can and should be a willing partner in that endeavor, but at the very least it is time for the federal bureaucrats to get out of the way.
