Red snapper is one of the Gulf of America’s (formerly Gulf of Mexico’s) most iconic species and perhaps one of the region’s greatest management success stories.
Federal and state partners, fishermen, and other stakeholders collaborated to develop new and innovative solutions to rebuild the red snapper stock. These solutions included establishing a commercial individual fishing quota program and a state management component for the recreational sector. These programs provided the states more flexibility to set fishing seasons, monitor landings, and increase fishing opportunities—expanding economic benefits to the Gulf region. However, climate change could have detrimental effects on red snapper and reef fish species, and these effects are not fully understood.
However, there is much more work to be done. We are addressing scientific and management uncertainty for red snapper and dozens of other species. This will benefit millions of anglers in the world’s largest recreational fisheries.
We will increase the certainty of stock assessment data and management. This will allow NOAA Fisheries and state partners to improve data collection for recreational fisheries. This will result in more timely and accurate scientific advice for managing red snapper and other reef fish. In collaboration, we will determine the best tools for collecting reliable recreational fishing data that support our science and management decisions for red snapper and other reef fish.
Red Snapper Project Areas
NOAA Fisheries is focusing on supporting red snapper data collection efforts by:
- Improving recreational catch, effort, and discard estimates from federal and state surveys
- Strengthening state-federal data exchange
- Harnessing the power of advanced technology and artificial intelligence to enhance video and acoustic surveys
Video/Acoustic Camera Surveys
We will use advanced technologies and artificial intelligence to capture more reliable reef fish abundance data. We are developing and implementing video and acoustic camera surveys in the Gulf to improve this data.
Partner with Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission
The Gulf Fisheries Information Network, administered by the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, will become a central clearinghouse for all Gulf of America recreational data. This includes enhancements to state data management and processing systems. This will allow for increased data timeliness and seamless data integration for use in science and management.
We will continue working collaboratively with Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission and state partners to increase accessibility of state survey data.
Fishing Effort and Discards
Our intention is to set the gold standard for validation and improvement of state and federal recreational data collection to provide better measures of catch, effort, and discards. We will augment the estimates of recreational fishing effort and discards. These estimates represent two of the greatest sources of uncertainty in managing and assessing reef fish in the Gulf.
Red Snapper Workshops
In 2024, Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission convened two workshops to plan key activities including:
- Improving the accuracy of recreational fishing effort estimates
- Improving the coverage of at-sea observer programs
- Investigating new methods for collecting discard data from the private boat sector
The Commission opened a competitive request for proposals for workshop facilitation, software development, and data management expertise and will select proposals in May 2025.
