July 11, 2016 — Tres Atkins followed his passion and made the biggest bet of his life: He became a commercial fisherman. In 2006, he bought a boat, moved to Galveston, Texas, and began fishing for red snapper. He also unwittingly joined the front lines of one of the most important conservation success stories in recent history—the turnaround of U.S. fisheries.
The future looked bleak when Mr. Atkins entered the fishing business. Decades of overfishing had sharply depleted the red snapper population, and attempts to address the problem had led to a tangle of federal regulations, including short fishing seasons and low quotas. That, plus depressed prices, made it hard to make ends meet. Yet a decade later, the Gulf of Mexico red snapper population is rebounding, and Mr. Atkins’s big bet has paid off. Having entered the fishery with a single boat, he now runs one of the largest family-owned fleets in the Gulf of Mexico, along with a wholesale seafood business.
His success is part of a larger story. The U.S. has reversed the seemingly intractable downward trend in fish stocks that began in the 1980s. A composite health index of federal fisheries is at an all-time high. American jobs supported by domestic fisheries now number 1.83 million, up 15% since 2011.
Not every fishery is thriving. The challenges facing some fishermen, including many small operators in New England, are real. But after years of alarming headlines, a national picture of success is emerging. What fueled the comeback?