US Secretary of Commerce has decided to impose ban on red snapper fishing at least six months. The decision is an outcome of a months-long fight between fishermen and federal fisheries managers. It is said that by spring, a final decision is expected on an indefinite ban on recreational and commercial fishing from Cape Canaveral to Charleston, S.C., for any kind of snapper or grouper.
Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas council informed that this fishery management plan could have a very real human price. In these states, fishing represents 4 to 6 million anglers, more than 100,000 jobs and a multi-billion dollar economic impact. Lawsuits to stop the council have been filed in federal court. A bill that would block the council’s proposals has been sent to Congress.
The National Marine Fisheries Service’s southeast regional administrator, Dr. Roy Crabtree, said the situation in the South Atlantic is “the most contentious” he’s ever seen. Bob Jones, who has been executive director of commercial fishing’s Southeastern Fisheries Association since 1967, said the stakes have never been more serious. He added that the only thing this reminds me of is the Florida net ban.
The council’s stock assessment for red snapper was completed in 2008, putting it in the one-year time frame. The assessment determined that red snapper have been fished for several decades at eight to 14 times the sustainable level and that the population has been fished down to just 3 percent of the historic virgin stock levels existing in 1945.
The reason the council decided that rebuilding red snapper stocks requires shutting down all bottom fishing is its estimation of how many red snapper die after release — 90 percent for commercial boats and 40 percent for recreational.
