The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council has come up with an innovative regulatory system which not only improves commercial fishing in the area but also stopped overfishing of red snapper.
It could be a benefit to both fishermen and environmentalists. The new system came as a relief to the Council who tried hard to protect the red snapper population without harming commercial fishing. According to the Council the new system should be used as a model for other commercial species, particularly gulf grouper.
The new system has certain limits such as strict sizing which led to protect small size fish that failed to survive capture. Strict harvest number allows all the fishermen to catch certain numbers of fish under strict limitation. Before this there was race among fishermen to catch as fast as they could and this put fisherman and the snapper population at risk. It was in 2007 the council has passed individual fishing quotas, which allow a certain number of catch limit to every individual. It also allows each fisherman to buy and sell a fix share of their quotas based on their past catches.
This system gives fishermen the liberty to pursue fishing in accordance with weather and market mood without any fear of losing their share of catch. To make the environment friendlier for fish and the people the council also slashed the legal catch size to reduce waste. Commenting on the new system the fishing officials state that the dockside prices are increasing whereas useless fishing is decreasing and so the market has a consistent supply of red snapper. According to Pensacola fisherman Donny Waters this innovative way would fixed the broken system and the Council should expand the reach of new system to grouper and other highly sought species.
