April 10, 2014 — The recreational red snapper season in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico has effectively been closed, with the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council Reef Fish Committee voting this week to restrict saltwater anglers to just *two fish per day for 11 days. (*Responding to the earlier bulletin, NOAA Fisheries has informed us that the red snapper bag limit in 2014 will be two fish rather than one; no change to the season however.)
The decision to essentially end public access of a rebuilding red snapper stock was the result of a lawsuit by 21 commercial fishermen funded by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) brought against the federal government. A judge on March 26th found that NOAA Fisheries violated federal law by allowing anglers to fish 40 days for red snapper in 2013, leading EDF attorneys to a victory dance around what's left of the recreational red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico.
"We won," cheered EDF attorney Monica Goldberg in a widely circulated email following the judge's decision, while Adam Babich, a Tulane University professor who specializes in environmental law cases trumpeted the verdict as "good news."
However, for Gulf tackle shops and for-hire captains on the Gulf Coast with federal permits who will be unable to take their customers out for red snapper once the whopping 11 days are used up, the judge's decision and the response by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council is not exactly something worth celebrating.
Since 2007, the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) has been lobbying Congress to address restrictive measures written into the last reauthorization of the Magnuson Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (MSA). Inflexible rebuilding deadlines coupled with punitive accountability measures on the recreational fishing community have led to ever-shortening seasons on red snapper in both the Gulf and South Atlantic Region.
In addition to a federal fisheries law that ignores the unique needs of the recreational fishing sector, a federal requirement to overhaul and replace the recreational data collection methodologies by NOAA Fisheries is now 5 years past the due date, which RFA says is destroying the coastal angling community.
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