March 2, 2018 — SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — A small but swift U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat bounced violently over the choppy Gulf of Mexico last week, becoming airborne more than once before the chief ordered the pilot to slow down.

Five-foot waves and constant swell are typical February conditions at the U.S.-Mexico maritime boundary — even pleasant compared to other days the armed and ready crew members search for Mexican fishermen poaching in U.S. waters.

Four or five men in a simple Mexican watercraft, or “lancha,” can easily take tens of thousands of dollars in fish on a single run. The boats don’t look like much — rickety white fiberglass hulls with no steering wheels, powered by standard Yamaha outboard motors, equipped with simple fishing gear and rusting navigational equipment. But Mexican poachers are mostly winning the cat-and-mouse game, slipping through the violent chop and back into Mexico’s territorial seas, coolers laden with fish.

Their goal is one of the most popular commercial and recreational fish species in the Gulf today: red snapper.

“Almost exclusively what we’re seeing being targeted is red snapper,” said Capt. Tony Hahn, commander of the Coast Guard regional crew out of Corpus Christi, Texas. “Where they’re going and the reefs they’re fishing in are definitely populated by red snapper, which aren’t migratory. They’re hitting places where they know they’re going to catch red snapper, and that’s what we’re seeing from their catch.”

The U.S. has protested to the Mexico government, but the response has been lacking. Last year, NOAA decertified Mexico under compliance rules aimed at tackling illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The decertification means that no Mexican fishing vessel can enter any U.S. port, accept under exceptional circumstances and only with the Coast Guard’s approval.

Several million dollars’ worth of red snapper have already been stolen from U.S. waters by Mexican fisherman. As the problem persists and may worsen, NOAA may go even further next year. An officer with NOAA’s enforcement division says the next step could entail restrictions or an outright ban on imports of fish from Mexico.

Read the full story at E&E News