Category

Red Snapper

Big, tasty, and relatively easy to catch, Red Snapper is reputed to be the most sought-after offshore fish in U.S.-controlled waters of the Gulf of Mexico. After crashing in the last 1980s, the fish has also seen one of history’s most impressive recoveries, due to a combination of individual fishing quotas, bycatch reduction devices, artificial reef construction, and imposition of bag limits and seasons.

Interviews

Narrator: Felix CoxTitle: 14 3/4 Inch FishDuration: 00:01:17Date: February 23, 2000Felix Cox was a commercial shrimper and fisherman, operating out of Aransas Pass. He worked with the Environmental Defense Fund, and others, to manage Gulf of Mexico fisheries more sustainably. Here he talks about the problems with government size limits on harvested red snapper.Narrator: Felix CoxTitle: Absolute WasteDuration: 00:01:04Date: February 23, 2000Felix Cox, a long-time commercial shrimper and fisherman, worked to improve the sustainability of fishing in the Gulf. He was deeply concerned about the derby-style of management that forced fishermen to discard fish that were harvested, unintentionally, out of season.Narrator: Benny GallawayTitle: Shrimp Bycatch and Natural MortalityDuration: 00:03:13Date: August 25, 2022Benny Gallaway, Ph.D., has studied red snapper for decades, and here explains how shrimp bycatch reduction devices failed to have much impact on bringing more juvenile snapper into the fishery. The devices did not work as well as hoped, and any snapper that they did save were often lost to natural mortality, especially from predators like sea bass, trout, croaker, and shrimp eel.Narrator: Benny GallawayTitle: Hurricane KatrinaDuration: 00:01:20Date: August 25, 2022In 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck hard on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, devastating many ports and decimating the shrimp trawler fleet. Many scientists expected that the reduction in shrimping would lower the trawling bycatch of red snapper. However, Dr. Benny Gallaway points out that Katrina's impact on snapper was negligible, suggesting that there were other, bigger factors at play in the fluctuations in snapper numbers.Narrator: Gary RinnTitle: No SpearfishingDuration: 00:03:17Date: March 7, 2024Gary Rinn, an experienced diver and charter boat operator, ran trips out to the Flower Gardens banks in the Gulf of Mexico for many years. During public hearings in 1989 about designating the banks as a National Marine Sanctuary, Mr. Rinn spoke up about the need to protect snapper, grouper and other aquatic life there against spearfishing, and to guard the reefs themselves against damage from anchors, chain and cables.Narrator: David SikesTitle: Rods and ReelsDuration: 00:03:57Date: October 17, 2022David Sikes wrote an outdoor column for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times for over 20 years, and in that role was a witness to the tensions between commercial and recreational fishermen. Here he talks about how that dynamic played out in the red snapper fishery.Narrator: Greg StunzTitle: EffortDuration: 00:01:46Date: August 30, 2022Greg Stunz, a marine biologist at the Harte Research Institute, recounts the history of the red snapper population in the Gulf of Mexico, and how its decline into the late 1980s went largely unseen, because greater fishing effort, in terms of improved boats, navigation, and gear, kept producing bigger harvests.Narrator: Greg StunzTitle: Slipper Skippers and SharecroppersDuration: 00:04:03Date: August 30, 2022The commercial red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico is managed under an Individual Fishing Quota system, which has succeeded in bringing overfishing under control. However, these quotas are tradeable. Dr. Stunz explains how this quota market has allowed speculators to buy and rent out these fishing rights to fishermen who must not only pay high rights royalties, but also undergo the risks of boats, seas, crews, fuel, and more. Narrator: Greg StunzTitle: Cascading EffectsDuration: 00:03:03Date: August 30, 2022Greg Stunz, is a marine biologist and chair of the Fisheries and Ocean Health program at the Harte Research Institute in Corpus Christi. Here he describes the need to be more holistic about fisheries management, to look beyond a single-species orientation, and to develop a ecosystem-based approach.