December 5, 2014 — Bob Shipp says the red snapper stocks in the Gulf of Mexico are healthier "than they've ever been in history." He knows what he's talking about: The New Orleans native chaired the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of South Alabama for 20 years and served two nine-year stints on the federal Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council. His "Guide to Fishes of the Gulf of Mexico" is a go-to resource for anglers.
Video taken during an August research cruise off Alabama showed reefs teeming with red snapper, he told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune Outdoors writer Todd Masson in an interview. That is typical, he said.
Federal fisheries managers aren't able to measure the fish along reefs, the deputy assistant administrator for regulatory programs for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told a congressional panel Thursday.
And there is the problem, at least part of it. Despite NOAA officials' claims to the contrary, the agency doesn't know nearly enough to accurately measure red snapper in the Gulf.
That is why U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, a Republican representing coastal Alabama, and other Gulf Coast officials are pushing for changes in the way snapper is managed. "We have lost confidence in you. … Frankly, I think we've come to the point where we need to take it away from your organization and give it to the people that live in that area who will do it right and do it with sound science," he told the NOAA official Thursday at a hearing on the Gulf of Mexico Red Snapper Conservation Act.
The legislation, which was introduced in 2013 by Florida Rep. Jeff Miller, would shift responsibility for management of red snapper to the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission. That is an interstate compact including Louisiana and other Gulf states.
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