Saving Seafood

LOUISIANA: Science vs. Spin: The Truth About Menhaden Fishing in Louisiana Waters

December 15, 2025 — Louisiana’s coast supports a wide variety of uses, including conservation, recreation, commercial fishing, energy, and shipping. The debate over menhaden harvest and the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission (LWFC)’s proposed Notice of Intent reflects how difficult it is to balance those interests using science-based decision making.

Recent commentary has raised concerns about the sustainability of Gulf menhaden and the impact of modifying buffer zones. Some of this misleading pressure has come from out-of-state advocacy groups unfamiliar with Louisiana’s working waters. It has led people to ask how the fishery is managed and what the proposed changes would mean on the water.

Louisiana’s menhaden fishery produces over $419 million in annual economic output and provides livelihoods for more than 2,000 people in the industry and its supply chain. Menhaden also serve its ecosystem role as forage for gamefish and recreational fisheries.

In a debate full of online noise, facts still matter most.

Read the full article at The Advocate

LOUISIANA: Louisiana reduces size of menhaden fishing buffer zones

November 7, 2025 — The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission (LWFC) is moving forward with a proposal to reduce the size of buffer zones for menhaden fishing near the state’s beaches, a move praised by the industry and criticized by environmental groups.

The LWFC voted to shrink the buffer zones around Louisiana beaches to a quarter-mile, removing a prior half-mile buffer zone that was put in place in 2024. The decision followed a clash between the menhaden fishing industry and environmentalists in 2023 after net spills lead to hundreds of thousands of dead fish washing up on shore.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

LOUISIANA: In win for commercial menhaden industry, LWF Commission approves controversial loosened regulations

November 7, 2025 — The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission on Thursday advanced a plan to decrease the size of a no-fishing zone after members of the commercial menhaden fishing industry complained that guidelines put in place last year had cut their haul by up to 25 percent.

The panel last year had restricted menhaden boats to areas at least a half-mile offshore at points west of the Mississippi River. At its meeting Thursday, members voted 4-3 to approve a notice of intent to decrease the buffer zone to a quarter-mile in some areas, but increase it in other areas deemed more sensitive.

Hundreds of recreational anglers in attendance opposed the pullback. They had wanted the commission to push the buffer zone out to a mile offshore.

Read the full article at WBRZ

LOUISIANA: Gulf menhaden fishery no threat to red drum, study finds

July 10, 2025 — A study of bycatch in the Louisiana menhaden purse seine fishery found that overall non-target fish species comprised 3.59 percent by weight – below the state’s restriction for no more than 5 percent, according to a July 8 report to the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission.

Capture of red drum as menhaden bycatch was calculated to account for 3.4 percent of red drum mortality in the state. Menhaden industry advocates welcomed the findings at the commission’s July meeting, saying the detailed data showed 30,142 redfish were taken by the fishery during 2024, “while recreational fishing is responsible for 96.6 percent by number of fish.”

“The study reaffirms what decades of science have consistently shown: Louisiana’s Gulf menhaden fishery is sustainable, selective, and not a threat to red drum populations,” the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition said in a statement after the report’s release.

The study was funded with a $1 million appropriation from the Louisiana state Legislature, and administered by the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission. Conducted by researchers with LGL Ecological Research Associates Inc. on board menhaden vessels for seven months during the 2024 fishing season, the study “represents the most detailed assessment of bycatch in the history of the Gulf menhaden fishery,” according to the menhaden coalition.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Panel rejects proposal to restrict menhaden fishing along Louisiana coast

November 9, 2020 — A growing conflict over Louisiana’s but largest but perhaps least-known commercial fishery came to a head this week when state leaders rejected a plan to restrict large-scale menhaden fishing near the state’s coastline.

The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission on Thursday voted down a proposal backed by recreational fishing and conservation groups that would have established a menhaden fishing “exclusion zone” to protect fragile coastal habitat and marine species from the long nets and large vessels operated by the menhaden fishing industry. The zone, which would have extended one mile out along the entire Louisiana coastline, mirrored restrictions enacted in other states, including Mississippi and Alabama.

Also called pogies, menhaden are tiny silver fish that play an outsized role in the Gulf of Mexico’s fishing industry. By volume, the menhaden fishery is the largest in Louisiana and the Gulf, and the second in the U.S. Often boasting annual harvests of more than 550,000 tons, the menhaden fishery far outweighs the Gulf’s famed commercial catches, including crab and shrimp.

Read the full story at Houma Today

LOUISIANA: Shrimping season in SWLA begins

May 28, 2020 — Shrimping season, well known to Southwest Louisiana, kicked off Wednesday morning at 6 a.m.

Boats began lining up as early as Tuesday night to get the perfect spot to take off next morning for some good shrimping.

Vice president of Tommy Seafood Inc Chalin Delaune said there’s a lot of factors that play into shrimping.

“It really depends on the cycle of the moon. It depends on the area,” Delaune said.

“Here in Cameron, this is the last zone for shrimping that opened. So, there are other areas that have opened in the state before Cameron. But we’re hoping they saved the best for last. As of right now, we’ve seen a little bit of shrimp. So, we’re hoping that we’re able to open up and our boats will be able to catch some shrimp to cover their expenses and make some money.”

Read the full story at KPLC

LOUISIANA: Red Snapper fishing likely to continue through Labor Day

August 25, 2017 — BATON ROUGE, La. — Based on the latest LA Creel landings data and this weekend’s weather forecast, LDWF biologists anticipate the red snapper season will remain open through Labor Day.

The latest catch stats from LDWF’s LA Creel, the agency’s near real-time data collecting program, show that 849,227 pounds of red snapper had been caught as of August 13. The last reported amount was 780,769 pounds.

The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission has ordered LDWF Secretary Jack Montoucet to shut down the red snapper season when it appears anglers will meet the self-imposed limit of 1.04 million pounds.

Read the full story at KATC

LOUISIANA: Red snapper season dominates LWFC meeting

July 8, 2017 — The dire prediction from two state fishery managers that recreational anglers would catch Louisiana’s self-imposed limit of red snapper by early July did not materialize after information was provided during Thursday’s Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission meeting.

Jason Adriance, the state Wildlife and Fisheries biologist who reports to the LWFC on such matters, told the seven-member commission Louisiana fishermen took less than half of the 1.04 million pounds of red snapper during the early three-day federal season and a special weekends-only season struck between congressmen and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

That 1.04 figure comes from data showing Louisiana’s recreational take is 14 percent of the overall catch from Gulf waters when extracted from the annual recreational catch quota mandated by federal fisheries managers.

The special recreational season opened June 9, and came after the June 1-3 season in federal waters, the shortest-ever recreational red snapper season.

The congressional push, which was acknowledged to be led by Reps. Garret Graves and Steve Scalise, both Louisiana Republicans, gave the five Gulf states three options from which a 39-day season was put in place to run Fridays-through-Sundays with exceptions adding July 3-4 and Labor Day, Sept. 4, to the open season, which is to close Sept. 4.

Adriance’s presentation indicated the recreational catch, derived from its LA Creel data, came up just short of 500,000 pounds, and said that number didn’t include catches from the four-day Fourth of July period.

Read the full story at The Acadiana Advocate

LOUISIANA: Red snapper dominates LWFC meeting

June 9, 2017 — Discussion of red snapper, and the state’s options about a new federal recreational plan, during Thursday’s Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission monthly meeting will spill over to Monday after commission chairman Chad Courville said more public input is needed for the seven-member commission to accept one of three options advanced earlier this week.

The special meeting is set for 1:30 p.m. Monday at state Wildlife and Fisheries headquarters at 2000 Quail Drive in Baton Rouge.

The options were revealed in a survey sent Monday by the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ Marine Fisheries Section to 15,000 holders of the state Recreational Offshore Landing Permit. LDWF secretary Jack Montoucet told the commission 5,000 holders responded to the survey in three days.

The survey’s three options included:

Option 1: Separate seasons for state and federal waters — in other words the status quo, a factor that led to the recent three-day (June 1-3) private recreational anglers red snapper season in federal waters;

Option 2: A joint 27-day Saturday-Sunday season in state and federal waters from June 17 through Labor Day with open fishing days July 3-4 and Labor Day with the possibility of an open state season after Labor Day, “… if biological data permits;”

Option 3: A joint 39-day Friday-Saturday-Sunday season in state and federal waters from June 16 through Labor Day with open fishing days July 3-4 and Labor Day, but no state season after Labor Day.

Read the full story at KPVI

Pilot program would give Louisiana control of red snapper stocks for three years

May 8, 2017 — The head of the Fisheries Division of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries on Thursday told the board that regulates his agency he’s optimistic Louisiana may get to manage red snapper in federal waters off the state’s coast in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Patrick Banks updated the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission about a proposal he made to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council that would establish a pilot program allowing Louisiana to manage red-snapper stocks in both state and federal waters off its coast for three years. By an 11 to 5 vote, the council approved the proposal, which gives Louisiana the go-ahead to flesh it out into an actual amendment that would ultimately need to be approved by the advisory panel.

“It’s not everything we want, but it’s certainly a better ride than what we’ve got right now,” Banks told the commission.

Details of the plan must still be worked out, and Banks said it’s possible the council will alter the ultimate amendment so much it will look nothing like what’s originally proposed. But his intention is to allow Louisiana to set seasons and regulations out to 200 nautical miles off the coast during the three years of the pilot program to demonstrate how regional management might work.

Banks cautioned, however, that wouldn’t mean a 365-day season with high daily limits.

Under the proposal, state anglers would get access to Louisiana’s historical catch, which is 15.8 percent of the total Gulf recreational red snapper quota. Based on current numbers, that would be about 1.1 million pounds of red snapper.

Since more waters would be open to anglers from the Texas to Mississippi state lines, Louisiana’s share of the quota would be much more quickly reached than under the current management regimen. In 2016, the federal season was only 11 days, but state waters were open to red snapper harvest for nearly nine months.

Read the full story at the Times-Picayune