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Column: Commission ignores science in setting red snapper rules

 
Published March 21, 2015

As the owner and operator of a boat dealership in Tarpon Springs, I cringed when the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission recently proposed a 70-day 2015 red snapper state-water season without once considering science to inform its decision.

For three years the commission has abandoned its red snapper rebuilding management partnership with the National Marine Fisheries Service, claiming it is the state's right to manage its red snapper fishery as it sees fit while demonstrating a complete disregard for science while doing so.

Sadly, the commission has justified its decisions by claiming that marine boat and motor sales are declining due to science-based federal fishery laws. This is nonsense.

According to GE Lending, one of the nation's largest marine product lenders, U.S. boat sales increased by 8.9 percent in 2014, with fiberglass outboard engine sales — fishing boats — increasing by 11.3 percent. Yamaha alone, an industry leader in outboard engines, reported a 62.4 percent increase, roughly $480 million, over 2013, with large-model marine products — outboards — selling especially well.

The commission's willingness to blame federal fisheries laws for weak sales, when the industry's numbers show the industry is booming, is disingenuous and a flawed argument to mask the commission's recent shift away from science-based red snapper management.

In 2010 commissioners claimed they did not want to rebuild the red snapper fishery as quickly as the National Marine Fisheries Service's 30-year timeline will. The commission made this claim without once asking for data, catch estimates or an assessment of Florida's gulf state-water red snapper stock. The commission merely wanted more fishing opportunities in Florida territorial waters without respecting the health of the gulf's entire red snapper population.

If the commissioners would have requested sound scientific indicators and adopted proven management protocols to set sustainable catch limits that informed appropriate season and bag limits, the commission's actions would have been palatable.

To the contrary, the commission avoided, and continues to ignore, gathering and debating any science on red snapper in gulf state waters, arbitrarily setting state-water seasons that will most likely result in federal-water closures.

Unlike the state, the National Marine Fisheries Service is responsible for all fisheries occurring in federal waters. Fish like red snapper are managed according to scientific principles that comply with the congressional mandates to end overfishing and to rebuild depleted fisheries on timelines that take the species generational life cycles into consideration. And to be certain, the federal management plan is working extremely well.

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The gulf's recreational red snapper annual quota under federal scientific management has increased 20 percent from 2014's 5 million pounds to 2015's 7 million.

The continued success of the snapper's 30-year science-based rebuilding timeline requires that wherever a gulf red snapper is caught, state or federal waters, the fish counts against the gulf's total annual catch limit. Since Florida's commissioners have increased state-water season lengths, all Florida Gulf Coast anglers must suffer the consequences of the commission's non-science-based decisions, which carry the real threat of closing federal waters across the gulf to make up for Florida's additional state-water pressure.

Florida's longer state-water seasons are of particular concern for Tampa Bay area anglers who enjoy a very small red snapper fishery in state waters and consequently often have to venture into federal waters to reliably target the species.

Unfortunately, in practical terms, the commission's non-science-based decisions max out the total allowable catch under federal rules, meaning that Tampa Bay fishermen will have few to no days of red snapper fishing, focusing pressure on a small swath of waters off the Panhandle. That's bad for fishermen in the Tampa Bay area and bad for the red snapper fishery's health and sustainability.

Bay area anglers simply want the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to manage gulf red snapper by the best available science. The fishery deserves no less.

Brad Kenyon is an avid angler who has served on fishery advisory panels to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council. He owns and operates Boat and Motor Superstores in Tarpon Springs. He wrote this exclusively for the Tampa Bay Times.