But area anglers question the conservation group’s findings.
July 31, 2017 — A federal decision to extend the recreational fishing season for Gulf of Mexico red snapper this summer is likely to lead to overfishing, conservation group says.
The extended season, now under way, could allow anglers to take up to three times as much snapper as legally allowed under scientifically sound catch limits, according to an analysis of fishery data by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Pew analyzed estimated red snapper catch rates and projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service and concluded that total 2017 landings in the Gulf by all fishermen will probably exceed legally allowed amounts by at least 37 percent.
“That’s a disturbing scenario for a species that plummeted to low population levels from overfishing in the 1990s,” Holly Binns, Pew’s director of U.S. Oceans Southeast, wrote Thursday in a report on the findings. “Gulf red snapper have been recovering thanks to federally mandated, science-based catch limits and court-ordered measures to prevent catching the fish faster than they can reproduce, but that progress is now in jeopardy.”
Louisiana and other Gulf Coast anglers won a 39-day red snapper season that started June 16 and is expected to run through Labor Day. Recreational fishermen can catch red snapper Fridays through Sundays through Sept. 4 in federal waters off Louisiana; state waters were closed to the fish as part of the deal.