History of Management of Gulf of Mexico Red Snapper
The following is intended to provide a historical overview of the red snapper fishery - looking back at where we've been, how we have arrived at where we are at today, and ways we can move forward to continue rebuilding this important fishery in the future. To return to the Red Snapper Management Overview, please go to https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/southeast/recreational-fishing/gulf-mexico-recreational-red-snapper-management.
Photo: Red snapper catch in the Gulf of Mexico. Courtesy of Scott Hickman
Historical Overview: How has the red snapper fishery changed over time?
Red snapper have been harvested from the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf) since at least the 1840s. The fishery began in the northeastern Gulf, centered around Pensacola, Florida. During the early development of the fishery, harvest was limited to vessels known as “smacks” that fished close to port. When ice and trains became readily available to store and transport red snapper, vessels began to make longer voyages and landings increased.
Fishery scientists and fishermen first observed localized depletion of red snapper off Florida in the late 19th century. Early catches were dominated by large fish, often averaging 10 pounds or more; but, as depletion occurred, the availability of fish near shore declined and vessels extended their trips farther from port to catch fish. Beginning in the late 1800s, vessels began harvesting red snapper from Campeche Bank off Mexico and by the early 1900s U.S. commercial landings exceeded 7 million pounds, although few were from the Western Gulf. It was not until the 1930s and 1940s that fishing activity increased in the Western Gulf as rock ridges and snapper banks were discovered.
Map of historic Red Snapper fishing grounds in the Gulf of Mexico (Carpenter 1965).
Commercial landings fluctuated between 2 and 5 million pounds up until the 1950s as vessels shifted effort from U.S. waters to Campeche Bank in the early 1900s. After World War II there was a large increase in the size of the commercial fleet and technological innovations, such as fathometers, reels, and wire fishing line opened up new fishing grounds resulting in a large increase in landings in the western Gulf.
During this period, the shrimp fishery also rapidly expanded. Markets increased for pink and brown shrimp as new fishing grounds were discovered and vessels began using double-rig trawls, which greatly increased the amount of shrimp that could be caught per unit of effort. The number of days spent shrimping more than doubled between the 1960s and 1990s. Because juvenile red snapper (age 0-1) are accidentally captured in shrimp trawls, the shrimp trawl fishery became a significant source of red snapper mortality.
Prior to World War II, recreational fishing in the Gulf was fairly limited. But after the war, increased tourism along the Gulf coast coupled with the mass production of fiberglass boats and improvements in motor technology and navigational equipment led to increases in recreational fishing. This increased demand for recreational fishing opportunities spawned a large party boat fishery that primarily targeted red snapper.
Annual recreational landings quickly grew from less than 500,000 pounds prior to 1950 to over 5 million pounds by the late 1990s. Today, recreational anglers account for more than half of the total Gulf red snapper landings and discards due to restrictions on harvest and retention.
Status of Red Snapper: How has the health of the red snapper population changed over time?
Fishery managers are required by law to prevent overfishing and rebuild depleted fish populations. Overfishing indicates the rate at which fish are removed from a population is too high. Scientists conduct stock assessments to determine the status of fish populations and how many fish can safely be removed from populations without causing them to decline over the long term. If overfishing occurs, eventually too many fish will be removed from a population and it will become depleted or overfished (population abundance is too low).
Fishery scientists and managers analyze and define target rates of fishing mortality (rate that fish are removed from a population by fishing) that will allow a fish population to produce the maximum amount of harvest over time or to rebuild a fish population if it has become depleted. Fishery scientists and managers also define various targets and thresholds for population abundance. For example, they define the minimum abundance level necessary to prevent the population from declining over the long term and the abundance level that would allow the population to produce the maximum harvest over the long term. The latter is used as the “rebuilding target” when populations become depleted or overfished.
In the case of Gulf red snapper, the rebuilding target is based on spawning potential. Spawning potential refers to the number of eggs a fish produces over its lifetime in a fished population compared to the number of eggs produced by a fish in an unfished population. The target spawning potential for Gulf red snapper is 26%, which means fishery regulations are designed to increase the population to a level where it is producing about one quarter of the eggs that would be produced by an unfished population. The red snapper population rapidly declined from 1950 through the late 1980s as commercial and recreational landings and shrimp effort increased. The population reached its lowest level in 1990, when spawning potential declined to just 2.0%—well below the level necessary to sustain the red snapper population.
NOAA Fisheries conducted assessments of Gulf red snapper almost every year from the late 1980s to 1999. At that time, it was determined more time was needed in between assessments. The first assessment was conducted in 1988 and concluded red snapper was overfished and undergoing overfishing. Additional assessments conducted in the 1990s and in the 2000s all reached the same conclusions - too many fish were being killed by directed fisheries and shrimp trawlers. An assessment that was completed in 2013 determined the spawning stock biomass had increased and therefore the stock was no longer undergoing overfishing, but was still overfished. This determination remained constant until the implementation of Amendment 44.
The implementation of Amendment 44 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico in December 2017 redefined the definitions of the minimum stock size threshold for reef fish. This reclassified the status of Gulf red snapper stock from "overfished" to "rebuilding". The most recent assessment, completed in May 2018, determined the stock is not overfished and there is no overfishing occurring. However, the stock remains under a rebuilding plan.
Rebuilding Red Snapper: What have fishery managers and fishermen done to rebuild red snapper?
In the late 1980s, NOAA Fisheries and the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (Gulf Council) began implementing various regulations to reduce fishing mortality and rebuild the red snapper population.
In addition to limiting the total number of fish that could be harvested annually, commercial and recreational fishermen were restricted by limiting the number of licenses issued (in the commercial and for-hire fleets only), limiting the number of fish they could retain on a given fishing trip, restricting the size of fish they could retain and the type of gear they could use, and limiting when they could fish.
Shrimp fishermen were required to install devices in their trawl nets to reduce bycatch of juvenile red snapper. These measures led to small, gradual improvements in the status of red snapper over a 15-year time period (1989-2004), but were not sufficient to end overfishing or make sufficient progress in rebuilding the population. By 2005, red snapper spawning biomass had increased to only 4.7%, well below the target level of 26%.
In 2005, managers began developing a new plan to rebuild red snapper. At that time, regulations were designed to end overfishing of red snapper by 2009 or 2010. In 2007, the recreational and commercial quotas were lowered by 45% from 9.12 million pounds in 2006 to 5.0 million pounds by 2008, the recreational bag limit was reduced from five to two fish per person to slow the rate of harvest, and the commercial minimum size limit was reduced to minimize discard mortality. Furthermore, an individual fishing quota (IFQ) program was implemented for the commercial sector.
The rebuilding plan also established a shrimp trawl fishing effort threshold to minimize the amount of juvenile red snapper caught in shrimp trawls between depths of 60-180 feet in the Western Gulf. That threshold was designed to constrain effort to 74% less than observed during 2001-2003. In 2011, the threshold was changed to 67% less than the 2001-2003 effort. Shrimp fishing effort has remained below the threshold since 2007. If shrimp effort increases in the future, then rebuilding measures require fishery managers to close some areas in the Western Gulf to shrimp trawling to limit effort in areas of high juvenile red snapper abundance.
The rebuilding plan is working. The 2009 update assessment indicated red snapper abundance was increasing and less fish were being removed due to fishing. The 2013 assessment indicated the stock was still rebuilding, although it remained overfished, and catch levels could be increased. The 2015 update assessment indicated that spawning biomass tripled from 2005 to 2013, but the stock remained overfished. The 2018 assessment determined the stock was no longer overfished but more rebuilding is needed. The 2018 spawning stock biomass was 20%, still below the target level of 26%.
Why Continue Rebuilding Red Snapper?
The rebuilding plan was designed to end overfishing, rebuild the red snapper stock, and ensure long-term harvest opportunities. While the red snapper stock no longer be overfished or undergoing overfishing, it is still under a rebuilding plan. Currently the red snapper population contains a disproportionate number of younger fish. A healthy population requires an appropriate mix of fish of different ages. Red snapper is a species with a long life span – they can reach over fifty years of age – and older red snapper females are the biggest egg producers. Since managers reduced quotas in 2007, none of the resulting young fish have yet reached their peak productive years, around age 20. Continued restrictions are designed not only to increase abundance, but to also allow red snapper to reach older ages and larger sizes.
Currently, most fish landed in the Gulf are less than 10 years of age. As the stock rebuilds, the number of fish older than 10 years will increase. A 5-year old red snapper produces about eight times as many eggs during a fishing season as a 3-year old red snapper and a 10-year old red snapper produces 33 times as many eggs as a 3-year old red snapper. The same is true if you consider the size of fish. A 20-inch red snapper produces three times as many eggs as a 16-inch red snapper, and a 32-inch red snapper produces 24 times as many eggs as a 16-inch red snapper.
Managers reduced the quota for the commercial and recreational sectors combined to 5 million pounds in 2008 and 2009 but, since then, the limits have risen steadily as the stock rebuilds. For 2018, the quota for the commercial and recreational sectors combined was 13.81 million pounds.
But Why is the Recreational Fishing Season Shorter?
Although a growing red snapper population is good news for many people, it has unexpectedly – and somewhat counterintuitively – reduced fishing opportunities for the recreational anglers. That’s because the recreational fishing season has gotten progressively shorter even as the red snapper population grows.
So why are recreational fishing regulations becoming more and more restrictive even as the red snapper population increases? Because more fish means people are catching them faster.
In 2017, recreational fishermen harvested fish four times the rate they did before the population began to recover, resulting in six times as many pounds landed.
At the same time, the fish were getting bigger – the average landed fish doubled in size between 2007 and 2013.
Red snapper are also becoming easier to catch with advancements in technology and more artificial reefs being placed closer to shore. So while the fish population is growing rapidly, the rate of catch is growing more rapidly. Even though managers have been able to raise the quota each year since 2010, they have had to progressively shorten the recreational season to stay within the quotas due to the increased landing rates.
Even with short seasons, the recreational sector exceeded its quota every year from 2007 to 2013, except for 2010 during the Deepwater Horizon MC252 oil spill. Then, in 2014, a Federal District Court found that NOAA Fisheries failed to require adequate accountability to prohibit the retention of fish after the recreational quota had been harvested and address any overages. To address the Court decision, managers established a red snapper recreational annual catch target to help maintain landings within the recreational quota. NOAA Fisheries started projecting the federal red snapper recreational season based on the catch target, which is set at 80% of the quota. With implementation of the annual catch target, recreational landings did not exceed the quota in 2014 or 2015. Furthermore, accountability measures were put in place that required a payback if the recreational quota was exceeded in a fishing year, provided red snapper was classified as "overfished" at that time. Any overage would be subtracted from the following fishing year total recreational quota by the amount of the overage in the prior fishing year and the applicable recreational component quota(s) and annual catch target(s) would be reduced. The commercial sector is held accountable by the IFQ program.
Projecting the recreational season based on the annual catch target reduced the private angling component season even more. In response, several Gulf states opened state waters to recreational red snapper harvest for extended periods when federal waters were closed. Catches from these extended state seasons were counted against the recreational sector’s quota, which further reduced the federal season length. These state water seasons provided a benefit to private anglers, but federally permitted for-hire vessels are prohibited from fishing in open state waters if federal waters are closed. The red snapper federal for-hire and private angler recreational fishing seasons open each year on June 1 and close when their respective ACTs are projected to be reached.
Allocating the Quota
Since 1990, the quota is allocated 51% to the commercial sector and 49% to the recreational sector. This allocation was based on landings data for each sector during 1979-1987. In 2011, the Gulf Council began developing Amendment 28, which would modify the commercial and recreational allocation to give more to the recreational sector. However, a court order vacated the amendment and required NOAA Fisheries to reinstate the sector allocations and resulting quotas and annual catch targets that were in effect prior to Amendment 28.
In 2015, the Gulf Council split the recreational sector into the two components, and separate recreational sub-quotas were established for private anglers and for-hire vessels. The recreational sector quota (49% of the overall quota) currently designates 57.7% for the private anglers and 42.3% for the for-hire vessels. Separate recreational sub-quotas will end December 31, 2022, unless the Gulf Council takes further action. NOAA Fisheries anticipated separate quotas would improve management of the overall recreational sector and decrease the likelihood of future recreational quota overruns that may jeopardize red snapper stock rebuilding.
Distinct recreational components changed the way NOAA Fisheries calculates the season length for each component. State-water landings outside the federal red snapper recreational fishing season can be assigned to the private angler component. Also, the average weight of red snapper harvested, which is different for the two components, can be calculated separately. For 2015, the private angler component had a 10-day federal water season, and the federally permitted for-hire component had a 44-day federal water season. For 2016, the private angler component had a 9-day federal water season, which was extended two days because of a tropical storm, and the federally permitted for-hire component had a 46-day season. For 2017, the private angler component had a 3-day federal water season, which was extended 39 days by the Department of Commerce, and the federally permitted for-hire component had a 49-day season. The for-hire component landings have not exceeded the for-hire quota since the separate components were established. The private angler component quota was exceeded in 2016 resulting in the total recreational quota being exceeded. The overage was subtracted from the 2017 quota. In 2017, the private angler quota was exceeded, but the overage was not subtracted from the 2018 quota because the stock was no longer overfished.
How do we Improve the Situation? Other options for the future
So, how do we improve the situation for federally permitted for-hire vessels and private anglers? Several short and long-term options are currently being considered by the Gulf Council.
In August 2012, the Gulf Council began developing a regional management strategy, which would allocate the recreational quota among the states, then authorize each state to set their own bag limits, size limits, and determine when fishing could occur. However, agreement on state by state allocations of the red snapper quota was not reached, resulting in the Gulf Council postponing action. In April 2017, the Gulf Council re-initiated development of a plan for management of red snapper that would allow states some authority regulate both state waters and adjacent federal waters. In April 2018, NOAA Fisheries issued exempted fishing permits to each Gulf state (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida) that allow state agencies to set the 2018 and 2019 seasons for the private angling component for red snapper caught in state and federal waters that are landed in that state. In February of 2020, NOAA Fisheries implemented Amendment 50 (A-F) to the Gulf Reef Fish FMP, which delegated authority to each of the Gulf states to establish specific management measures applicable to private anglers in Gulf Federal waters who are landing red snapper in that state. This rule apportioned the private angling quota to each Gulf state as follows: Alabama 26.3% percent, Florida 44.8%, Louisiana 19.1%, Mississippi 3.6%, and Texas 6.2%.
NOAA Fisheries approved a two-year (2014 and 2015) pilot study by a limited group of headboats to examine the feasibility of an allocation-based management program, where boats were issued a certain quantity of red snapper and gag, based on their historical catches of these species. This concept was designed to increase accuracy of catch and effort reporting, and improve accountability for the headboat fleet. Based on the success of this program, in 2014 the Gulf Council began evaluating allocation-based management programs for the federal for-hire component of the recreational sector. Allocation-based management approaches for federally permitted for-hire vessels are being considered separately for vessels that participate in the Southeast Regional Headboat Survey (headboats), and those that do not (charter vessels). At their April 2018 meeting, the Gulf Council postponed further development of these amendments in order to again explore state-based management as described above.
Other potential actions for management of red snapper are currently being explored. One of these actions would modifiy the recreational red snapper annual catch targets, and potentially adjust the buffer between the quota and the annual catch target. A second would explore carryover of unharvested quota. A third would explore reallocation of the red snapper quota, which would consider changes to the allocation between the commercial and recreational sectors as well as changes to the allocation between the private angling and for-hire components of the recreational sector. NOAA Fisheries recognizes new and innovative solutions are needed to manage the Gulf recreational red snapper fishery and welcomes input from constituents.
What is Next?
As NOAA Fisheries recognizes new and innovative solutions are needed to manage the Gulf recreational red snapper fishery, constituents are encouraged to provide input to the Gulf Council and NOAA Fisheries on issues related to red snapper recreational fishing opportunities. Now is the time for fishermen, scientists, and managers to work together to develop creative solutions that keep the recovery of Gulf red snapper on track while providing increased opportunities for recreational anglers to catch red snapper now and for years to come.
More Information
Red Snapper Management Overview
NOAA Fisheries Gulf of Mexico Branch Homepage
Survey Certification for the Marine Recreational Information Program
References
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