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GULF SNAPPER SEASON CLOSED AS OF THIS MORNING
RFA Expects Red Snapper On Gulf Council August Agenda
The Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) reminds anglers that the
recreational season for Gulf of Mexico red snapper in federal
waters is now officially closed. According to a release from the
Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (Council) issued late
last week, the closure which went into effect this morning "was
established to limit the harvest of red snapper in the Gulf and
help rebuild overfished stocks so that anglers can enjoy better
red snapper fishing in the future."
Despite the fact that red snapper was officially delisted as an
overfished stock in 2009, RFA said anglers have been rewarded with
a measly 48-day season in 2011, the shortest season on record for
a red snapper fishery with a June 1 start date. RFA's Executive
Director Jim Donofrio said great rebuilding progress has been made
with regard to the red snapper fishery over the last few years,
adding that recreational anglers are growing tired of hearing
about how good the fishing will be in the future. "NOAA
continues spewing claims that cutbacks today will yield to greater
benefits tomorrow, but that simply doesn't hold water any longer,"
Donofrio said.
"Accountability measures and rigid annual catch limits coupled
with a broken recreational data collection system have made this
idealized goal of fisheries management completely unattainable,
and until significant reforms can be made to the federal fisheries
law, NOAA is being disingenuous by continuing to make statements
about our future," he added.
The Council notes that the Gulf snapper season has consistently
closed prior to the posted September 30th closure date,
while adding that members have asked NOAA Fisheries Service to
develop an emergency rule that would suspend the September 30
recreational red snapper closure date in order to give the
Regional Administrator more leeway to open a fall season if or
when quotas are not met during the summer season.
RFA said fishermen up and down the coastal U.S. have been pleading
with NOAA for additional leeway and management flexibility ever
since the federal fisheries law was reauthorized by Congress back
in 2007. "Rigid timelines and annual catch limits based on flawed
harvest data have been devastating to our recreational fishing
industry, and America's anglers are growing frustrated by the lack
of response from the federal fisheries service," Donofrio said.
"We've had enough moratoriums on angler access, what we need right
now is improved data collection methodologies as required by law."
Donofrio said he spoke with an RFA member last week who was
fishing the Gulf and had encountered one of the NOAA research
vessels doing longline surveys on bottom fish. "Our guy was on the
fish and radioed over to the NOAA vessel that they were off the
mark by a good 100 feet. Do you know that NOAA captain replied
back, 'what's the difference, it's only a hundred feet.' Can you
believe this is what our government calls best available science?"
RFA says that in terms of sampling surveys, 100 feet could be the
difference between one and 1,000 fish. "The data being used by
NOAA Fisheries is atrocious, not just recreational data collection
but the trawl surveys themselves," Donofrio said, adding "Things
are not going to get any better just waiting around for the
bureaucracy to improve, we need an Act of Congress and we need it
now."
Currently, the Gulf Council is working on an amendment that could
revise the structure of the fall recreational snapper season.
Three actions contained in the amendment are:
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Revise or eliminate the fixed closed season. Currently, the
recreational red snapper season must close by September 30.
Pushing back or eliminating the closure date will give the
Council more management options.
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Allow weekends only, or weekdays only fishing periods. This
gives the council more options for in-season management.
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Increase the 2012 red snapper Total Allowable Catch based on the
2011 red snapper rerun analysis.
Public hearings for this regulatory amendment will be held
sometime after the August Council meeting which will be held at
the Crowne Plaza in Austin, TX from August 15-19. Details can be
found at
www.gulfcouncil.org.
According to NOAA Fisheries, the Marine Recreational Fishing
Statistical Surveys (MRFSS) are still being used in 2011 for
recreational harvest data, and is expected to be carried over
until 2012. "The 2006 reauthorization of the Magnuson Stevens Act
was supposed to put an end to MRFSS methodologies, but the data is
still here and it's still impacting negatively on our community,"
Donofrio said, adding that MRFSS projections for the season are
what's being used to estimate that the
red snapper quota was met by anglers as of July 18.
"The National Research Council (NRC) purposefully cautioned that
MRFSS could not be used for real time monitoring of recreational
harvest, yet NOAA continues to defy the expert advice of NRC's
scientific panel by using MRFSS for real-time quota monitoring in
the recreational sector and for projecting landings into the
future," Donofrio said.
"While the weatherman may still have a job if his weekly forecast
is off by a few degrees and no jobs are loss due to his
inaccuracies, fishermen and fishing related businesses feel a very
painful impact on their bottom line resultant of NOAA's
irresponsible use of MRFSS and frivolous use of limited NOAA
resources on pet projects such as catch shares," he added.
Signed by President Bush in January of 2007, the newly
reauthorized Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management
Act mandated that MRFSS be replaced by a new methodology known as
the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) as of January
of 2009. Recently, NOAA Assistant Administrator of Fisheries, Eric
Schwaab told a national sportfishing magazine that the new MRIP
program "could" be ready for rollout sometime in 2012, a full
three years past the congressionally mandated deadline.
"Three years late and hundred feet short, I'm just glad our
Defense Department doesn't operate as inefficiently as the
Department of Commerce, I'd hate to think where our freedoms would
be today," Donofrio said.
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