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Red Snanner
RED SNAPPER
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Description:
color silvery-pink to reddish with short, irregular pink and yellow lines on its sides; diffuse black spot, about as large as the eye; the dorsal fin centered above the lateral line; outer margin of caudal fin blackish.
By the time you read this, barring a last minute reprieve from the courts, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) will have enacted a four month closure on the harvest of vermillion snapper, gag, black and red grouper under an interim rule passed by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC).
The interim rule was issued under Amendment 16 to the Snapper and Grouper Management Plan to protect gag grouper during spawning season. While the closure seems laudable, the manner in which this blunt instrument is being wielded and the science used to support its implementation are both highly questionable. The only thing that isn’t in doubt is the dramatic negative economic impact it will inflict on the state of Florida.
Twenty-four months ago, the RFA began working with the Fishing Rights Alliance (FRA), a Florida-based organization that identified a range of questionable data being used in stock assessments and landing figures for snapper and grouper. FRA’s executive director, Dennis O’Hern, felt inaccurate data was driving the SAFMC process and RFA’s executive director, Jim Donofrio, knew that when it was combined with arbitrary rebuilding deadlines established in the last reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), draconian regulations were sure to follow.
“Charter captains, anglers and divers were telling us that what they saw on the water did not match the doom and gloom scenario of the NMFS stock assessments,” said O’Hern.
Observations from fishermen, what NMFS calls “anecdotal data,” are ignored by their assessment scientists, so a review of their stock assessment methodology was undertaken by the FRA with financial assistance from the RFA. The study was conducted by renowned fisheries scientist Trevor Kenchington PhD, and clearly indicated the biomass of gag grouper was high and the current landings figures showed that, contrary to NMFS determination, overfishing was not occurring in 2006 and 2007. Kenchington also pointed out serious flaws in the release mortality estimates being used in their assessments, which are pegged at 20-percent in less than 60-feet and 35-percent in deeper water. A study conducted by the FWC in 2006/2007 showed the release mortality using standard venting techniques was less than two-percent! This discrepancy has a huge impact on the estimate of overall stock size - driving it artificially lower in the final assessment!
The Kenchington report was submitted to NMFS for review, but until recently, they have exhibited an institutional close-mindedness to using outside scientific work. Similar problematic assessment methodologies were driving summer flounder management measures further north when a coalition of angler groups, including the RFA, funded an independent scientific review similar to the Kenchington report. That report was submitted to NMFS and, after a lot of hemming and hawing, changes were made to their most recent assessment, which resulted in a modest increase in the quota for 2009. In fact, it was the first increase in 10-years even though the stock had been growing at a phenomenal rate since the mid 1990s!
