Having determined that red snapper populations in the Gulf of Mexico are at historic low levels, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced a new management plan.

After the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council voted 10 to 5 in August to delay any new regulations to rebuild red snapper populations, NMFS started working on its own measures to deal with the problem. Their answer is to reduce the annual quota for red snapper from 9.12 million pounds to 6.5 million pounds, set a 2-fish bag limit for recreational fishermen, eliminate the bag limit for captain and crew on charter boats, set a 13 inch size limit for commercial fishermen, and set a goal of reducing shrimp trawl bycatch of 50%.

Shrimp trawlers kill as much as 80 percent of each year class of juvenile red snappers. It is not clear how NMFS will address the bycatch issues, and leaders in the recreational fishing community feel that the reduced bag limit is unfairly punitive, and are skeptical about any real bureaucratic or political will to reduce bycatch. Meanwhile the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) is taking legal action to force shrimp bycatch reductions. For more information, visit www.ccatexas.org.