Rebuilding stocks- snapper

[reefsquater]

http://www.savingseafood.org/

SavingSeaFood - Recreational charters push Gulf council to reward them for overfishing red snapper

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by John Sackton -- Feb 11, 2013 -- A new allocation fight is taking place in the Gulf of Mexico with recreational charters, backed by the Coastal Conservation Association, preparing to steamroller commercial interests, and further restrict domestic red snapper from restaurant menus.

Red snapper is a NOAA success story, with a management plan in place that allocated 51% of the red snapper catch to commercial harvesters, and 49% to recreational harvesters, mostly represented by organized charter captains.

The fishery is no longer overfished. The average size of a red snapper caught in the Gulf has grown from 3.3 lbs to 7.07 pounds in 2012, and is projected to be 7.7 pounds in 2013.

However, rather than celebrate the spectacular comeback of this fish, recreational charters have complained that the larger size fish is making their fishing season shorter. The reason is that they are on a weight allocation of 49% of the quota, and when the fish are larger - as they should be as the stock increases - they catch fewer fish before hitting their quota.

As a result, the recreational fishing season has become shorter, and in 2013 will be around 27 days, down from around 40 to 45 days in the last couple of years.

Furthermore, the council's own analysis shows that between 2001 and 2011, commercial harvests have been below quota for 7 our of 10 years, and when the quota was exceeded it was by an insignificant amount of around 100,000 lbs.

However, the recreational sector has exceeded its quota in 7 of the last 10 years, often by amounts of 1 million pounds or more. The total harvest of red snapper is around 8 million pounds.

Instead of forcing recreational captains to live within their sector rules, the council is now considering rewarding them with additional quota, taken directly from the commercial sector.

The stock is projected to keep rebuilding, and the council is examining several options, including freezing the commercial quota at 4.121 million pounds, and giving all future increases to the recreational sector. Another option is to reallocate the percentage going to recreation by reducing the commercial allocation from 52% down to as low as 40%.

This is supposedly backed by an economic study showing an individual would pay a higher marginal rate for a red snapper caught with a guide, vs. the extra income that would accrue to the commercial harvester.

But this type of study leaves out the entire economic value of red snapper as a restaurant menu item. Their was an entire Louisiana culinary tradition based on blackened fish (redfish and red snapper) that swept the country when promoted by Chef Paul Prudhomme, leading to a huge outpouring of promotional dollars - which was damaged by the collapse of commercial red snapper landings in the Gulf.

Now that the species is recovering, the council is not considering the economic benefit to restaurants and American consumers from having access to red snapper. The principle of allocating fish resources to the commercial fishery is that by putting this fish in commerce, the commercial industry serves a public purpose, and contributes to the healthy diet of Americans.

Unfortunately, the deck is stacked in the Gulf Council. Observers expect the red snapper grab will be supported by a 9-7 majority. NMFS administrator Rauch was concerned enough to attend one of the meetings on this topic, and told the Council members that NMFS was closely monitoring their decisions.

The CCA, behind this fish grab, is playing for long term results. Their goals for red snapper, just like for striped bass on the East Coast, is to make the fish commercially extinct and reserve the entire stock for their sector. Every time conservation measures are proposed, the recreational sector fights them - whether it is over licensing, reporting, or fish limits.

Unlike Alaska, where the halibut commercial sector is large and highly visible, the red snapper commercial fishery is small and well managed, with a group of fishermen voting an ITQ system a number of years ago. The ITQ system has been largely responsible for ending overfishing and allowing the stock to rebuild.

Now the recreational lobbyists want to swoop in and steal the fish that the commercial sector has rebuilt. In this game of raw political power, only NMFS can step in and require a fair allocation, that would also include mandatory measures to keep the recreational sector within the allocation.

The commercial harvesters are represented by the Gulf of Mexico Reef Shareholders Alliance. They fear this grab for red snapper is just the camels nose under the tent, and that CCA will keep fighting to limit commercial allocations on all species of reef fish.

The Louisiana Seafood Promotion Board, which has popularized Louisiana fish, will be left high and dry if the Gulf Council decides to take prized fish like red snapper away from the restaurant trade to give it to charter captains. All who are concerned about American access to domestic high value fish should pay attention to this fish grab.

[Fishguts]

Wow this should make a few off the local captains pretty happy. Some guys on this board just last week were complaining that the USA has way to many imports of seafood and is doing a terrible job of supplying domestic product. Looks like their "postinging" has been heard and what they posted may come true.

[tautog]

Red Snapper are about has hard to catch in the Gulf as dogfish are here. On many spots deeper than 120 it is almost impossible to catch a grouper because there are so many red snapper. Definitely should be a longer season and a larger bag. Population stats only include fish on natural bottom, all the fish on oil rigs, wrecks and artificial reefs are not indicated in the overall population estimate. The northern Gulf has very little natural bottom, so most of the population lives on man made obstructions.

[Chico]

It is not to the comms credit that red snapper are so abundant and so large in size today. A combination of things helped them recover so well (if they were ever in need of recovery?). First of all the majority of the red snapper that are killed are killed as a bycatch in the shrimper's nets. New regulations regarding the nets themselves helped in nets that don't kill as many baby snapper as before (they still kill plenty). Katrina almost singlehandedly wiped out the shrimp fleet, and as a result many more baby red snapper have survived, and are now reaching a mature size. What Katrina did not wipe out, the Horizon Oil spill helped finish off much of the shrimping fleet. In addition, the regulators have no clue what the recs are actually catching, the "over fishing" that the commercial interests claim, are unfounded. As they allude, as the fish have gotten bigger and bigger, we are allowed fewer and fewer fish and days to catch them. Shows how support for our groups that represent us, the recs, just might pay off!!