Domestic red grouper could be a nice holiday limited-time offering as the U.S. supply got a shot in the arm in the form of a quota increase for the last two months of the year. Consider it a Christmas gift from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
NOAA Fisheries more than doubled the allowable take for commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico for November and December. Overall, the 2011 red grouper quota jumped from 5.68 million to 6.88 million pounds, a 21 percent increase for the year, but is still down about 1 million pounds from last year’s quota. The total includes about 1.65 million pounds for the recreational fishermen.
Sounds great, but one Florida seafood distributor urges caution, saying that the amount is only enough for every grouper fisherman to make about one more trip.
“All it’s going to do is allow the supply to remain somewhat consistent,” he said. “It’s not like it’s going to cause a lot more production, only allow for there to be any production.”
The distributor adds that the individual fishing quota (IFQ) system in place for Gulf fisheries is a “major mismanagement” that only makes it harder for fishermen and Gulf finfish distributors to make a living, despite what he said are healthy grouper and American red snapper stocks. They’d prefer trip limits. But the good news, he said, is that there is a planned quota increase for red grouper each year for the next five years.
U.S. grouper imports through the first eight months of the year totaled 7.3 million pounds, a 2.6 percent decline. The noticeable drop is from Mexico, which exported 4.3 million pounds of fresh grouper north of the border, a 17 percent decrease. Mexico is the leading U.S. supplier of frozen grouper, and the 1.1 million pounds of frozen fillets it exported through August represented a 69 percent increase from the first eight months of 2010.
