Red snapper management in the Gulf of Mexico: science-or faith-based? (original) (raw)
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Data Availability for Red Snapper in Gulf of Mexico and Southeastern U.S. Atlantic Ocean Waters
North American Journal of Fisheries Management, 2015
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Fisheries Management of Red Snapper in the Gulf of Mexico: A Case Study
Natural Sciences Education
T he anticipation and suspense of the upcoming vote grows as the crowd enters the room. In the balance lie the declining health of the red snapper fishery and the post-Hurricane Katrina economy. Because of the desirable taste of red snapper, they have been fished since the mid-1800s, bringing millions of dollars in revenue to local communities through the recreational and commercial fisheries. However, overfishing has been occurring since the 1980s and the fish are smaller and reproducing earlier, both signs that the health of the population is declining. Congress passed the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976, which serves to conserve and manage the fishery resources found off the coasts of the United States. Regional councils were established under this Act and laws were established to protect declining stock of fish. One of the regional councils established under the Magnuson-Stevens Act is the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (GMFMC). After red snapper were recognized as being overfished, the GMFMC developed the Reef Fish Fishery Management Plan of 1984 (FMP), in part to help protect red snapper stocks. Regulations on red snapper are constantly changed through additional amendments to the FMP as the population changes through time. Today, the GMFMC meets to vote on stricter regulations potentially affecting thousands of lives (Fig. 1). The recreational red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico is composed of private anglers and charter boats. The total catch by private anglers is nearly equivalent to that of approximately 650 charter boats that cater to roughly 390,000 passengers per year. Meanwhile, the commercial red snapper fishery has more than a hundred boats that earn more than $6 million a year. There are countless hotels, restaurants, food industries, and tourist businesses that benefit from the red snapper industry as a whole.
Marine and Coastal Fisheries, 2017
In 2011, an intensive, multiple-gear, fishery-independent survey was carried out in the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) to collect comprehensive age and length information on Red Snapper Lutjanus campechanus. Based on this synoptic survey, we produced a spatial map of Red Snapper relative abundance that integrates both gear selectivity effects and ontogenetically varying habitat usage. Our methodology generated a spatial map of Red Snapper at a 10-km 2 grid resolution that is consistent with existing knowledge of the species: Red Snapper occurred in relatively high abundances at depths of 50-90 m along the coasts of Texas and Louisiana and in smaller, patchy "hot spots" at a variety of depths along the Alabama coast and the west Florida shelf. Red Snapper biomass and fecundity estimates were higher for the northwestern GOM than for the northeastern GOM, as the latter area contained mostly smaller, younger individuals. The existence of similar surveys on petroleum platforms and artificial reefs also enabled us to calculate their relative contribution to Red Snapper distribution compared with that of natural habitats. We estimated that for the youngest ageclasses, catch rates were approximately 20 times higher on artificial structures than on natural reefs. Despite the high catch rates observed on artificial structures, they represent only a small fraction of the total area in the northern GOM; thus, we estimated that they held less than 14% of Red Snapper abundance. Because artificial structures-particularly petroleum platforms-attract mostly the youngest individuals, their contribution was even lower in terms of total population biomass (7.8%) or spawning potential (6.4%). Our estimates of Red Snapper relative abundance, biomass, and spawning potential can be used to design spatial management strategies or as inputs to spatial modeling techniques.
Red Snapper in the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. South Atlantic: Data, Doubt, and Debate
Fisheries, 2011
Stock assessments provide fisheries managers with information that is used in the regulation of a fish stock. Assessments often rely upon a wide array of biological and fisheries data of varying quantity and quality, making the assessment process data hungry, complex, and uncertain. Assessment scientists face the difficulty of estimating numbers of individuals (among other biological benchmarks) of a population of widely distributed, often mobile, fishes for which direct measurement of almost everything is impossible. Consequently, stock assessment scientists are forced to use tools designed to assemble a variety of indirect measures into a statistical model capable of producing predictions to inform fisheries management about stock status and the consequences of past, current and future fishing practices. Despite large differences in estimates of the status of red snapper stocks in the Gulf of Mexico (U.S.) and south Atlantic Ocean (U.S.), and the management conclusions and decision drawn from these assessments, there are more similarities than differences in the basic data being used to inform assessment models, as well as in model outcomes concerning trends in biomass, catch-at-age and stock productivity. There are key differences in some of these data, and in how historical landings and uncertainty is handled in the assessment process, that result in large differences between the two management regions in beliefs about current and future productivity of red snapper stocks, and regulatory measures necessary for reaching management goals.