The Law That's Saving American Fisheries - Ocean Conservancy

David Krebs, who fishes for red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, says “it was really tough fishing”
until catch limits helped to launch the population’s recovery.
Brian Gauvin, www.GAUVINPHOTO.COM
David Krebs
Red snapper fishermen earn ‘conservation returns’
After lobbying to reduce their catch limits a few
years ago to speed red snapper recovery, Gulf of
Mexico commercial fishermen earned a conservation
return in 2012: The allowable catch climbed 7 percent to
just over 8 million pounds, the fourth year in a row that an
increase occurred.
“Fishermen should continue to see bigger fish and larger
catches as the population rebounds,” said Sam Rauch, NOAA’s
fisheries director, in announcing the increase.
Giving the fish a break helped the fishery climb out of trouble.
“By the time we got to the 2006 season, we could barely
fill the commercial quota. It was really tough fishing,” says
David Krebs, past president of the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish
Shareholders Alliance.
The snapper population was in rough shape at the time. Heavy
fishing pressure, including the losses of juveniles taken as
bycatch, had taken a toll. Red snapper was officially classified
as overfished in 1988; disputes over how to rebuild it went on
for more than a decade, eventually reaching the courts. The
Coastal Conservation Association, representing recreational
anglers, sued to reduce bycatch of snappers in shrimp trawls,
and efforts to reduce that incidental impact continue today.
Meanwhile, commercial fishermen in the alliance figured it
made sense to cut their catch in order to speed recovery of
the stock—and their own future earnings. “It was basically like
putting your money in the bank and letting it compound,” says
Donny Waters, a Pensacola, FL-based fisherman and former
president of the alliance.
They took their case to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery
Management Council, to NOAA, and even to Congress, and
they prevailed. With support from other fishing organizations
and individuals, and a 2007 ruling by a federal judge that the
current rebuilding plan violated the Magnuson-Stevens Act,
a science-based rebuilding program was implemented in
2008 that has successfully ended overfishing and begun the
recovery process.
18 It’s a Keeper