April 9, 2014 — A committee assigned with processing a controversial ruling from a federal judge has recommended this year's recreational red snapper season be cut from 40 to 11 days in length. The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council will vote on the measure Thursday.
Randy Pausina, assistant secretary for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, attended the Reef Fish Committee meeting Tuesday and was frustrated with the outcome.
"(The red snapper fishery) is so poorly managed that NOAA keeps getting sued, so the judges are doing all the fisheries management," he said. "That's really what ends up happening."
A federal judge in late March ruled in favor of commercial red snapper fishers in a suit the industry brought last June, stating that NOAA Fisheries, the agency that regulates red snapper harvest, had not sufficiently held the recreational sector accountable for exceeding its quota six of the past seven years.
Federal management of red snapper has been a comedy of errors in recent years as season dates and regulations have changed by wide margins and sometimes after the seasons had already opened.
In December, NOAA Fisheries announced the 2014 recreational red snapper season would stretch 40 days from June 1 through July 10. The sector was set to receive 49 percent of a total allowable catch of 11 million pounds, with the commercial industry receiving the other 51 percent.
Read the full story at the New Orleans Times-Picayune