Saving Seafood

Red snapper: Unusual experiment in Gulf of Mexico may ripple nationwide

August 8, 2018 — An unusual experiment playing out in the Gulf of Mexico is not only helping defuse the nation’s most politically charged fishing dispute but also advancing a new way of managing one of the country’s most popular pastimes.

Federal regulators and the five Gulf states – Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas – are sharing oversight of red snapper, the reef fish prized by private anglers and seafood lovers across the United States.

Congress last year created the two-year pilot program, known as the “experimental fishing permit” program. It grants states the day-to-day authority to manage red snapper seasons for recreational fishing in U.S. waters as far as 200 miles from the shoreline. Normally, state jurisdiction extends to no more than 9 miles off the coast.

The catch: States are in charge but they must follow strict federal fisheries rules and close the season once they’ve reached their quota.

For environmental groups, it means tougher protections apply to the entire red snapper habitat, including state waters. For the federal government, it’s a chance to test ways of counting fish in an attempt to settle once and for all just how many there are swimming around the Gulf. And for recreational anglers, it means more time to fish for red snapper in federal waters that in recent years have had short seasons.

“We definitely have to get away from the federal government telling us how many fish we can catch,” said Justin Lee Fadalla, 31, a private boat angler from Mobile, Ala. who supports the change. “We really need the state (managing) and actually doing these research trips. They know how many snapper are out there. When you go out and catch your limit in 10 minutes, there’s not a shortage of red snapper.”

Read the full story at the Abilene Reporter News

Gulf Coast lawmakers push bill on red snapper quotas

July 23, 2018 — After years of feuding with the federal government over red snapper fishing quotas, Gulf Coast lawmakers are pushing a bill to seize decision-making powers from the federal government and give them to state regulators.

Lawmakers say states know the resources best and better understand the impact of their decisions, but environmentalists worry the reforms will bypass science-based conservation methods and subject quota decisions to the whims of local politics, ultimately threatening fish stocks that fuel local economies and provide food to millions of Americans.

“This a huge economic thing as well as a question of freedom of the American people to fish in their own waters,” said Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-AL.

Byrne says he and other critics are frustrated with federal regulators, who the critics say rely on faulty science and don’t fully understand the local impact of their decisions.

Recreational fishing is a $63 billion a year industry in the United States, nearly a half million jobs. Byrne says that’s why it’s critically important to change the way conservation decisions are made.

“We’re taking control away from the federal government and giving it to state authorities who are closer to it and who we think make the better decisions,” Byrne said.

Read the full story at KXAN

Congress is considering big changes to longstanding federal fisheries regulatory act

July 2, 2018 — Eric Brazer likens federal fisheries management to a bank account held jointly by commercial fisherman, charter fishermen, restaurants and others who depend on a specific fish for their livelihood.

If one user overdraws the account, there is nothing left for the others, said Brazer, deputy director of the Galveston, Texas-based Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance, which includes commercial snapper and grouper fishermen from around the Gulf.

Brazer’s organization is one of many groups keeping a close eye on two bills being debated in Congress. A House bill by Rep. Don Young, an Alaska Republican, and a Senate bill by Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, could lead to significant changes in the Magnuson-Stevens Act.

Destin Mayor Gary Jarvis, former president of the Destin Charter Boat Association, has been in regular contact with U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, and other members of the Florida Congressional Delegation over the two bills.

Jarvis said the association doesn’t want want to see a major overhaul of Magnuson-Stevens.

“It is a legacy piece of legislation that does need to be revised from time to time,” he said. “But they are attempting to gut some things in the Magnuson-Stevens Act to change how fisheries are managed.”

Jarvis said charter fishing brings more than $175 million a year to the regional economy.  For the economic benefits to continue, there must be sufficient numbers of red snapper, triggerfish, amberjack, grouper and other popular fish species, Jarvis said.

“The Magnuson-Stevens Act has clear-cut management tools and what is happening is political maneuvering to weaken these existing rules,” he said.

Jarvis said he fears charter fishermen won’t be given a designated share of the catch limits. He also likened catch limits to a joint bank account.

“What is happening is that they are trying to make it easier for one user group to overdraw the account,” he said.

Read the full story at the Pensacola News Journal

May Gulf of Mexico Shrimp Landings Largest Since May 2009

June 26, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The National Marine Fisheries Service is reporting May 2018 Gulf of Mexico shrimp landings (all species, headless) of 16.281 million pounds compared to 14.585 million pounds in May 2017. This is the largest May total since 16.288 million pounds were landed in May 2009.

The Louisiana fishery led all Gulf states in May with landings totaling 10.369 million pounds. This is considerable since there hasn’t been a single production month in excess of 10 million pounds in that state since June 2014.

The cumulative total for the entire Gulf now stands at 28.14 million pounds; 2.1 million pounds or seven percent below the Jan-May 2017 total of 30.25 million pounds. The trend is still notable as landings in each of the last two months have exceeded the prior five-year average and the 2018 cumulative total stands 5.2 million pounds or 23 percent above the cumulative total of the prior five-year average.

As you would expect, ex-vessel prices are lower, especially for 21/25 and smaller count shrimp; and the Urner Barry markets have come under considerable pressure in recent sessions as seasonal production expands and where carryover inventory exists. Weakness is evident throughout the complex, but especially on 16/20 and smaller headless shell-on shrimp, and all-size PUD’s and P&D’s.

This story was originally published in Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.

 

Alabama anglers ready for expanded red snapper season

May 23, 2018 — Alabama’s recreational fishermen will be allowed to catch red snapper on weekends throughout the summer thanks to an experimental permit granted to the state from the federal government’s NOAA Fisheries.

Private anglers – fishermen who own boats and aren’t licensed by the state or federal government as charter boats – will be allowed to fish on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from June 1 through Sept. 3. The season will also include the entire week of July 4 and Monday, Sept. 3, Labor Day. Anglers are permitted two fish per day and the fish must be at least 16 inches in total length.

To fish for red snapper, anglers ages 16-64 must have a valid Alabama saltwater fishing license. Fishermen 65 and older and those younger than 16 are exempt from license requirements. They must sign up with the free Saltwater Angler’s Registry. It is available in the license section of www.outdooralabama.com.

The season for federally licensed charter boats runs straight through from June 1 through July 21.

Alabama Director of Marine Resources Scott Bannon explained that NOAA issues exempted permits to allow experimental programs outside the normal rules for the fishery.

Read the full story at the Alabama Newscenter

 

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross praises red snapper recreational pilot program

April 23, 2018 — U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross expressed praise on Tuesday, 17 April, for a pilot program that gives states along the Gulf of Mexico more power in managing the red snapper recreational fishery.

NOAA Fisheries previously unveiled a two-year pilot program giving partial control of the fishery to officials in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. All five states submitted applications that will enable them to manage the recreation fishery in both state waters, which run for the first nine miles off the coast, and federal waters, which extend beyond that.

“Granting these experimental fishing permits to all five states continues the work we started last year to expand recreational fishing opportunities through coordinated, Gulf-wide seasons,” Ross said. “We are going to give the states the opportunity to demonstrate effective management that improves recreational opportunities for all Americans.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Alabama Snapper Season of 47 Days Approved By NOAA

April 10, 2018 — The National Marine Fisheries Service [NMFS] has officially accepted Alabama’s plan to manage its own seasons for recreational red snapper fishing — paving the way for 47-day seasons in the next two years.

As Lagniappe has previously reported, the plan manages the season lengths in state and federal waters off the Alabama coast is part of a two-year pilot program approved by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council in February.

For the first time in years, Gulf states will be able to manage recreational snapper fishing off their respective coasts through individual Exempted Fishing Permits (EFPs) submitted to NMFS.

The decision comes after years of shorter and shorter snapper seasons that frustrated anglers and commercial fisherman alike until a consortium of Gulf leaders negotiated a compromise through U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross that extended the 2017 season.

Gov. Kay Ivey announced Friday that Alabama’s plan, which will create a 47-day season, will be in place for the next two years. In 2018, it will run from June 1 to September 2 on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays and the entire week on the Fourth of July. It would run concurrently in state waters and in federal waters, which begin nine miles from the coast.

“I am very pleased that the U.S. Department of Commerce, through the National Marine Fisheries Service, has granted Alabama an Exempted Fishing Permit for the next two red snapper seasons,” Ivey said of the plan’s approval. “Following the directives from President Trump to cut down on federal regulations, this decision empowers Alabama to manage our resources instead of bureaucrats in Washington.”

Ivey also noted the EFP program was made possible by language Sen. Richard Shelby added to the FY2017 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill. It directed the NMFS to develop the pilot program to allow states more control over reef fish management activities.

In a statement, Ivey said Alabama’s red snapper fishery is a big part of “the coastal culture and economy of” of the state and thanked Shelby and Rep. Bradley Byrne for their congressional efforts to give Alabama more autonomy in managing its coastal resources.

She also made a special note of the efforts Alabama is also indebted to Conservation and Natural Resources Commissioner Chris Blankenship made to push for alternatives to federal snapper seasons that had become shorter and shorter in recent years.

“The red snapper management granted by the EFP will allow Alabama to use the information from the Alabama Snapper Check Program, as well as the terabytes of fisheries data we have collected on the red snapper population in the Alabama Artificial Reef Zones, to show we can sustainably manage this fishery,” Blankenship said “I would like to thank Marine Resources Division Director Scott Bannon and Chief Biologist Kevin Anson for shepherding the permit request through the regulatory process.”

The federal charter season for red snapper is not included in Alabama’s new permit and is expected to be announced by NMFS sometime in April, though it is expected to be longer than the 2017 federal charter season, which stretched 49 days.

Ivey’s office said data collected through the Alabama Snapper Check Program the past four years was critical in securing the additional red snapper fishing days, and reminded fishermen they are still required to report their red snapper harvests through the program.

Only one report is required per vessel trip, and anglers can provide details via a smartphone app available under “Outdoor Alabama” in the iTunes or Google Play app stores; online at www.outdooralabama.com; or by paper forms available at select coastal public boat launches.

Read the full story at the Lagniappe Weekly

 

States: US government to rewrite 2 endangered species rules

March 16, 2018 — NEW ORLEANS — The Trump administration will rewrite rules governing how to choose areas considered critical to endangered species to settle a lawsuit brought by 20 states and four trade groups, according to state attorneys general.

The endangered species director for an environmental nonprofit says that’s terrible news. Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity says the administration has “shown nothing but hostility toward endangered species.”

The attorneys general for Alabama and Louisiana said in news releases Thursday that the administration made the agreement Thursday to settle a lawsuit brought by 20 states and four national trade groups, challenging two changes made in 2016.

According to the lawsuit, the rules are now so vague that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service “could declare desert land as critical habitat for a fish and then prevent the construction of a highway through those desert lands, under the theory that it would prevent the future formation of a stream that might one day support the species.”

A spokeswoman for Fish and Wildlife referred a request for comment to the U.S. Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to phoned and emailed queries. A NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman did not immediately respond Thursday.

“We are encouraged that the Trump administration has agreed to revisit these rules, which threaten property owners’ rights to use any land that the federal government could dream that an endangered species might ever inhabit,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said in his news release. “These Obama-era rules were not only wildly unreasonable, but contrary to both the spirit and the letter of the Endangered Species Act.”

Greenwald said, “Their case didn’t have a leg to stand on.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Seattle Times

 

Interior to Hold Massive Sale of Offshore Oil and Gas Leases

February 21, 2018 — The Interior Department announced Friday that the sale of leases on 77.3 million acres off the Southeast coast for oil and gas exploration will occur on March 21.

The sale, which Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said is the largest in U.S. history, will consist of leases off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. It includes all currently unleased areas in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Responsibly developing our offshore energy resources is a major pillar of President Trump’s American Energy Dominance strategy,” Bernhardt said. “A strong offshore energy program supports tens of thousands good paying jobs and provides the affordable and reliable energy we need to heat homes, fuel our cars, and power our economy.”

Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a New Orleans-based nonprofit that is heavily involved in environmental issues asked “How stupid can we be?” when she learned of the scheduled lease sale.

“The Gulf Coast is consistently nailed by hurricanes and yet our government insists on an energy strategy that exacerbates these hurricanes,” she said.

“A real energy strategy would be one that pursues renewables full speed ahead. Their so-called energy strategy is really a scheme for corrupt politicians to enrich themselves and their cronies,” Rolfes added.

Raleigh Hoke, campaign director of the Gulf Restoration Network, also took a dim view of the Interior Department announcement.

“We are disappointed that this Administration is moving forward with yet another lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico while simultaneously rolling back key safety measures to protect workers and the environment,” Hoke said. “Oil spills and accidents are an everyday occurrence in the Gulf, and we’re still at risk of a major catastrophe like the 2010 BP drilling disaster. We need stronger safety requirements, not weaker, and an end to all new offshore leasing in the Gulf.”

“Trump’s auctioning off this massive amount of our ocean while at the same time proposing to rollback important environmental and safety requirements,” agreed Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

 

After turbulent 2017, states want to control snapper fishery

February 14, 2018 — A year after the Trump administration likely broke the law by allowing overfishing of red snapper, five Gulf of Mexico states now want special power to manage the species in federal waters in 2018 and 2019.

They’re likely to get their way, too.

Unlike last year, the new plan would not allow sports anglers in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to exceed federal quotas, but the states would get the authority to call the shots in setting their own fishing seasons in federal waters.

Daryl Carpenter, the owner of Reel Screamers Guide Service in Grand Isle, La., and president of the Louisiana Charter Boat Association, can’t wait, saying the federal management system is broken and “has failed to come up with any type of fix.”

“It’s too dominated by non-interested groups, by your green groups who want to hug and cherish the fish,” he said. “You can get nothing done in the federal system. … I’m 100 percent in favor. The states need to take control of this and get the federal government out of our damn life.”

Critics say that ceding control to the states would be a mistake, arguing that federal officials long have led the way in rebuilding the red snapper population and remain the most qualified to do the job.

“The federal management process is the most open and transparent, no matter how frustrating,” said Shane Cantrell, executive director of the Charter Fisherman’s Association and the owner of Galveston Sea Ventures in Galveston, Texas.

All five states are pushing the idea as an experiment that would be allowed under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976, the nation’s premier fishing law.

They want NOAA Fisheries to give them “exempted fishing permits.” Those permits allow fishing that would normally be banned under federal law, usually as pilot projects done in the name of research.

“It allows us to exempt certain fishing activities from the regulations,” said Roy Crabtree, administrator for the NOAA Fisheries Southeast Region in St. Petersburg, Fla.

“How well will it work? Well, time will tell,” Crabtree said. “But I think a lot of people will argue that we’ve had some quota overruns in the past and we’ve had a lot of dissatisfied customers, so I think we do need to try something different.”

Many state officials say that NOAA is all but certain to sign off on the exempted fishing permits, after Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby got Congress to include language in a fiscal 2017 appropriations bill that directed the agency to come up with a pilot program to give states more control.

After the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council voted on Feb. 1 to approve the plans, Alabama officials said they were one step closer to taking over management of the red snapper.

Read the full story at E&E News