Gulf Council Pins Snapper Recovery on Shrimper Bankruptcies

KEY LARGO, FLorida, May 21, 2004 (ENS) - The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council has unanimously approved a rebuilding plan for red snapper in the Gulf that counts on half of the area's commercial shrimpers going out of business.

The do-nothing plan - Reef Fish Amendment 22 - was passed Wednesday in lieu of taking any management action to recover the red snapper population. It is the latest in a series of snapper proposals since 1997 when the National Marine Fisheries Service, now known as NOAA Fisheries, first officially declared Gulf red snapper were “severely overfished.”

The Council and NOAA Fisheries believe that the decline in the shrimp industry, and the subsequent reduction in red snapper bycatch - the catching and killing of non-targeted ocean wildlife - will be enough to bring about the recovery of red snapper.

Ray Pringle, president of the commercial fishermen’s group Florida Fishermen’s Federation, criticized the latest non-plan. “This is the strangest idea of fishery management I have ever heard of, and I have been involved in the fishing industry for over 45 years. It's like the Council is a bunch of buzzards sitting on a branch, waiting for the shrimpers to die."

At the same time that the federal fisheries agency is counting on shrimpers going bankrupt, another branch of the federal government is spending millions of dollars to keep the shrimp industry afloat. In 2003, Congress appropriated $35 million in disaster relief for U.S. shrimpers in the Gulf and South Atlantic to help them survive falling shrimp prices.

While American shrimp boats have added devices to their nets to reduce bycatch and undertaken other conservation practices, they have been faced with stiff competition from imports of foreign shrimp, due to an increase in production of farmed shrimp.

More than 964 million pounds of shrimp, valued at $3.4 billion was imported in 2002. As a result, cheaper foreign shrimp now make up 88 percent of the shrimp consumed in the United States.

Some reports indicate that domestic shrimp catch lost more than 50 percent of its value from 2000 to 2002, and prices for medium-size shrimp at the dock have dropped from about $6 per pound to $2.

“So rather than doing something for red snapper, the government decided to wait and see if foreign shrimp kills off the U.S. industry,” Pringle said, estimating that under the proposed plan, red snapper will recover in about 32 years.

“Congress has just given the shrimpers in Florida $6.1 million in disaster relief, and the Council wants them to die," Pringle said. "No wonder the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy has said our oceans are in dire trouble – we have morticians running our fisheries council.”

A regional environmental group, the Gulf Restoration Network (GRN), has been critical of Reef Fish Amendment 22 at public hearings and at Gulf Fisheries Council meetings. GRN Director Cyn Sarthou called Reef Fish Amendment 22 a “do-nothing plan,” with problems. She criticizes NOAA Fisheries for "basing red snapper recovery on assumptions about the future of the shrimp economy, which is completely uncertain."