Saving Seafood

Robert Jones: Red snapper anglers need real and lasting change

August 22, 2017 — The way recreational anglers’ share of Gulf red snapper is converted into fixed seasons clearly isn’t working and I believe we can do better! However, I think we can all agree that setting science-based catch limits have helped bring red snapper back from the brink, and now is not the time to abandon them.

The recovery of red snapper over the last decade has been amazing to see. I can remember fishing with my dad as a kid off the coast of Texas and we could barely find red snapper. Today you can go to just about any marina and see sizeable red snapper being unloaded with big smiles all around.

The fact is, as the population is rebounding, catch limits for recreational fishermen have more than doubled. The total for the fishery is 14 million pounds this year, split roughly in half between recreational and commercial fishing, with sub-quotas between charter operators and individual anglers. Better management regimes in the commercial and charter industries are keeping both groups within their sustainable limits.

So if the quota has more than doubled in the last decade and other fishing industries aren’t exceeding their limits, why are we facing frustratingly short federal seasons?

Read the full opinion piece at Houma Today

LOUISIANA: Anglers get another weekend of red snapper fishing

August 18, 2017 — Louisiana anglers will get another weekend of red snapper fishing as catch numbers are more than 250,000 pounds below the state’s self-imposed limit for 2017.

The latest statistics from the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries show 780,769 pounds of red snapper had been caught as of Aug. 6.

The Wildlife and Fisheries Commission has ordered agency Secretary Jack Montoucet to close the season when it appears anglers will meet the state’s self-imposed limit of 1.04 million pounds.

Louisiana officials said they hope being accountable for the catch limit will help the state’s chances of receiving federal permission to manage its own red snapper season not just in state but in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read the full story at Houma Today

Red snapper proposal attracts allies and foes

August 7, 2017 — Environmental and fishing groups continue to line up for and against Louisiana lawmakers’ proposal to give states more control over red snapper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Among other provisions, the companion measures awaiting action in Congress would give states authority to set seasons up to 25 miles off their coasts or to where waters reach 150 feet in depth, whichever is the greater distance. States already have the authority to manage the red snapper fishery up to nine miles off their coasts.

Companion bills introduced about a week ago are the latest in a years-long battle over how the popular fish is managed. Louisiana’s two Republican senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, are sponsoring the Red Snapper Act of 2017 in the Senate. Reps. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge; Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans; and Clay Higgins, R-Port Barre; are among a bipartisan group of Gulf Coast lawmakers who have introduced a companion bill in the House.

Recreational fishermen have for years complained that federal authorities have set overly restrictive catch limits and unnecessarily short seasons for red snapper despite a rebound in the species’ numbers. Environmental and conservation groups have already gone on record opposing the measure, saying it will hamper efforts to help the fish rebound from years of severe overfishing.

Read the full story at the Daily Comet

Louisiana anglers get another red snapper weekend

August 4, 2017 — Louisiana is definitely the Sportsman Paradise for anglers hoping to catch red snapper.

Latest estimates from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries show that the catch total is still thousands of pounds below the mark that would signal the end of the red snapper season.

The latest catch statistics recorded by LDWF’s LA Creel, the department’s near real-time data collecting program, is 736,159 pounds covering the period ending July 23. The last reported catch amount was 709,595 pounds, covering the period through July 16.

The state’s self-imposed cutoff number is 1.04 million pounds for 2017.

Read the full story at WAFB

Bills would open snapper harvest out to at least 25 miles

August 3, 2017 — Louisiana senators and representatives have introduced companion legislation in Congress that would give states management authority of red snapper out to 25 miles or 25 fathoms, whichever is greater, off their coastlines. Currently, states control red snapper out to nine nautical miles.

Both Louisiana senators, Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, introduced the bill in the Senate, while Reps. Garret Graves, Cedric Richmond and Clay Higgins joined seven other representatives to propose the House bill.

The legislation is designed to ensure Gulf of Mexico anglers have broader access to rebounding red snapper stocks during 2018 and beyond. This year, the Commerce Department gave recreational anglers 39 additional days in federal waters after NOAA Fisheries set a three-day recreational season.

That move is being contested in court, and without legislation to address the issue, recreational anglers could be locked out of the fishery in 2018.

Graves said the need for legislation is overdue.

“Something has to change,” he said. “It is time to replace the status quo with a management system that more accurately reflects today’s red snapper private recreational fishery.”

Read the full story at the New Orleans Times-Picayune

Longer season threatens red snapper, group contends

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.

Read the full story at Houma Today

Louisiana Lt. Governor Nungesser Tours Maine Aquaculture With Gulf Seafood Leaders

July 26, 2017 — Southern drawls and Cajun accents mixed with New England Down East tones as 20 members of the Gulf seafood community toured Maine’s innovative aquaculture facilities to identify potential opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico.

One voice on the tour was that Billy Nungesser, Lt. Governor of Louisiana, who sees a huge need and opportunity for his state to become an aquaculture leader in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the world.

Nungesser thinks that environmentally sound and sustainable aquaculture is needed in all the states that ring the Gulf to meet the ever-growing need for fresh fish worldwide. He admits that Gulf States, including his, are behind the curve in investing in the growing worldwide trend toward farm-raised fish.

Nungesser joined other state officials, fisherman, processors and seafood stakeholders in the tour organized by the Gulf Seafood Institute and hosted by the Maine Aquaculture Association. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provided funding for learning experience.

Read the full story at the Gulf Seafood Foundation

Red snapper recreational season continues off Louisiana

July 21, 2017 — The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says anglers have caught about 655,600 pounds of red snapper off the Louisiana coast this summer, and will be able to go after the fish again this weekend.

The state is more than halfway to its self-imposed limit. The department will end the season for anglers when it appears the catch will total just over 1 million pounds.

Under an agreement between the U.S. Commerce Department and all five Gulf states, the federal government added 39 weekend days to the red snapper season for recreational angles in federal waters. The agreement required the states to match those days rather than having longer seasons.

Read the full story at WBRZ

LOUISIANA: 2017 spring shrimp season to close July 14

July 10, 2017 — The 2017 spring inshore shrimp season will be closing Friday, July 14, 2017, according to Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries agents.

Officials say the closure will begin at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, July 14th. The closure will be from the Louisiana/Mississippi state line westward to the eastern shore of the Mississippi River and from Freshwater Bayou canal westward to the Louisiana/Texas state line. The exceptions will be in the following fresh water areas:

Lake Pontchartrain, Chef Menteur and Rigolets Passes, Lake Borgne, the Louisiana portion of Mississippi Sound, and the open waters of Breton and Chandeleur Sounds.

All out of state waters seaward of the Inside/ Outside shrimp line will remain open. (see photo for exact areas that will remain open)

Agents say that the decision to close these waters was made to protect these developing shrimp and provide opportunity for growth to larger and more marketable sizes. The areas that remain open will continue to be monitored and will close when the presence of smaller white shrimp make it biologically inappropriate to remain open.

LDWF would also like to remind shrimpers that there is a possession count on saltwater white shrimp taken in either inside or outside (offshore) waters of Louisiana of 100 count (whole shrimp per pound).

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