State should manage reef fish species such as red snapper, grouper, gray triggerfish and amberjack, is a great idea for now and for future, say experts.
Reef fish stocks will now get little respite as the state is going to manage it. Shipp, a renowned marine scientist and 16-year member of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, suggests reauthorizing the Magnuson-Stevens act this year to allow states to manage reef fish instead of the NOAA Fisheries Service.
Shipp’s plan says that the feds would retain oversight of highly migratory species such as mackerel, tuna, dolphin, wahoo and billfish. These are species the National Marine Fisheries Service has managed without unfairly burdening fishermen with unreasonably short seasons.
As per plan State reef management would extend along state lines out to the federal Exclusive Economic Zone or 200 miles into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s probably a good thing that most Gulf Coast charter captains have long moved beyond a reliance on red snapper to provide the majority of their income.
According to Shipp one of the biggest problems with federal management is that each fish stock in the Gulf is looked at as one unit. In the case of red snapper, there is no allowance made for Alabama’s 1,200 square miles of artificial reef, Mississippi’s fish havens, the oil and gas platforms off Louisiana and Texas or the nearshore natural bottom off Florida.
The feds says that it is a big ocean and they manage everything in it the same way. As veteran Gulf angler Marcus Kennedy so adroitly pointed out, the feds have become overburdened by that responsibility and must regulate commercial and recreational interests for everything from sponges to bluefin tuna. SO each state should be given to take its responsibility to manage their reef fish stocks.
