NOAA Fisheries Slams Door on South Atlantic Red Snapper Anglers

Washington, D.C. – March 6, 2020 – At the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council meeting this week, NOAA Fisheries announced recreational anglers from North Carolina to Florida could have a three-day 2020 red snapper season but may end up with no season at all. Since 2010, the recreational sector has been allowed to harvest red snapper in South Atlantic federal waters a cumulative total of 37 days despite increasing abundance of fish.
 
Under the current regulatory framework, a recreational South Atlantic red snapper season of three or fewer days is prohibited. Changing that framework requires a rulemaking period which is in its early stages.
 
Over the last decade, anglers have been baffled by NOAA Fisheries’ decision to radically limit public access to red snapper despite the plentiful number of fish they are encountering on the water. In 2018, the South Atlantic red snapper recreational sector Annual Catch Limit (ACL) was set at 29,656 fish. In the same year, NOAA Fisheries’ Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) estimated that 3,174,288 red snapper were released alive by Florida anglers in the South Atlantic alone. Using the accepted 28.5% recreational discard mortality rate, the number of released red snapper that did not survive is an estimated 904,672 fish. 
 
“Effectively eliminating the South Atlantic red snapper season is a prime example of federal fisheries management failure,” said Jeff Angers, president of the Center for Sportfishing Policy. “Unlike a buffet line, anglers cannot choose which fish to reel up from the deep, and when they are forced to throw red snapper back, many fish inevitably die. When discard mortality of these prized fish is 30 times the amount anglers can keep annually, the system is clearly broken. Wanton waste of so much of this precious resource is unacceptable and disheartening.”
 
The recreational fishing and boating community has long advocated for the use of descending devices to reduce the mortality rate of prized reef fish such as snapper and grouper. When deep-water fish are brought rapidly to the surface, they experience barotrauma – a condition where a buildup of gas pressure in their bodies makes it difficult or impossible to swim back down. If a fisherman releases the fish due to size, season or bag limit restrictions and the fish does not survive, this is a dead discard or wasted fish. A descending device is a weighted hook, lip clamp, or box that will hold the fish while it is lowered to a sufficient depth to recover from the effects of barotrauma and release the fish.
 
The recreational sector has taken a leadership role in advocating for the use of descending devices to improve survivability of released reef fish. The South Atlantic Council approved this requirement (Amendment 29) in September 2019, but NOAA officials have shown no urgency to implement the rule and save these fish. 
 
“Anglers have always done what’s necessary for sound conservation and management, including altering fishing techniques and accepting tighter restrictions to recover a fishery. It’s time the federal government started helping us in the South Atlantic,” said Angers. “Let’s start saving America’s marine resources from being needlessly wasted and implement the descending device requirement now.”
 

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