Individual fishing quotas (IFQs) for the Gulf of Mexico American red snapper fishery have helped the resource recover to relative abundance, according to the region’s fishermen and seafood dealers. But the system’s flaws are glaring, some argue.
Because there’s been so much focus on not catching too much snapper, the fish are multiplying and out-competing other species like grouper, dominating areas they were once scarce in.
“Can’t get a bait to the bottom without hitting red snapper,” said one seafood dealer from Florida’s eastern coast. “There’s a lot of fish out there.”
Another distributor on Florida’s west coast agrees, but only the western Gulf permit holders are benefiting. “We’d love to catch them but we can’t,” he said. “They’re moving the grouper out, they’re more aggressive. Nothing we can do about it. We have to throw red snapper back over here. Big waste. I think it’s fishery mismanagement at its highest level.”
While Gulf reef fisheries are in a state of “imbalance,” he adds, the overall supply of American reds (Lutjanus campechanus) is strong and availability is steady. In mid-June, whole fish prices were noted in the high-USD 4 to low-USD 5 range in late spring for 2- to 4-pound fish, while the more sought-after 1- to 2-pounders were tagged at USD 5.25 to USD 5.50. Yellowtail snappers and silks from Central and South America were priced about USD 1 less per pound.
The domestic supply got a clean bill of health when the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources said that the red snapper stock showed no signs of disease directly attributable to last year’s oil spill; some fish landed in Alabama were reported to have lesions but researchers said they found nothing out of the ordinary.
Many countries supply the United States with snapper from the Lutjanidae family, but American reds command higher prices than lanes, mangroves, muttons and silks. Mexico is the primary foreign supplier, even though that fish is typically a bycatch species of the grouper boats, says an importer. But they’re “the same fish, just cheaper,” he added.
The flow of red snapper from Mexico is up: U.S. imports through April totaled 2.8 million pounds, an 11.4 percent increase over the same period in 2010.
