Groups file suit after feds pad red snapper season
NEWORLEANS — Two environmental groups are suing the Trump administration for stretching the red snapper season for recreational anglers in the Gulf ofMexico.
Robert Jones of the Environmental Defense Fund and Chris Dorsett of the Ocean Conservancy said this week that both groups want their lawsuit to prompt discussions about improvements.
Jones said changes are needed. “The way we’re managing red snapper today stinks,” he said, with states setting widely different anglers’ seasons in their waters and federal seasons getting shorter and shorter.
An anglers’ group said the lawsuit comes as no surprise.
“Of course they sued, that’s what the environmental groups do. They hate it when Americans enjoy America’s plentiful public resources,” David Cresson, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association of Louisiana, said in an email.
The U.S. Commerce Department is reviewing the suit. It has said the economic benefit from allowing weekend fishing this summer by recreational anglers in federalwatersoutweighs theharmto the redsnapper species, which is still recovering fromoverfishing.
Defendants are Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and two department agencies, theNationalMarine FisheriesServiceandits parent agency, theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Gulf state officials praised the change, but the federal lawsuit filed in Washington says the decision violated several laws by ignoring scientific assessments, promotingoverfishing and failing to follow required procedures.
The fish has rebounded under fishing limits and procedures set by the Gulf ofMexico FisheryManagement Council , but is only halfway to its goal, Dorsett and Jones told The Associated Press earlier. The lawsuit isn’t trying to cancel the current season but seeks to prevent similar decisions in the future.
Cresson credited much of the resurgence to a smaller shrimp fleet since Hurricane Katrina and requirements for escape hatches to let fish swim out of shrimp nets.
In June, more than a week after a three-day recreational season had expired, the Commerce Department gave anglers 39 more days to fish federal waters for red snapper if states agreed to match those dates and close their waters the rest of the time.
“One of the driving forces behind the lawsuit was to keep this from happening again, both in the Gulf ofMexico and around the country. The rule rides roughshod over some of the most basic commonsense requirements” of the lawgoverningU.S. fisheries management, said Andrea Treece, attorney for Earthjustice, which represents the Ocean Conservancy.
Among other things, the lawsuit said, the seasonwas extended without adequate notice or time for public comment.
The federal notice stated that reopening federal waters off Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida for three-dayweekends through Labor Day, plus three holidays, could put the goal date for rebuilding the species back from 2032 to 2038. But it said it’s worth it because Gulf states’ economies were being hurt by the short season for anglers in private boats and because different management approaches were undermining management.
The original three-day season, which started June 1, had been set because anglers overfished their quota last year. Each year’s overage is subtracted from the following year’s quota, resulting in shorter seasons.
Anglers were allocated nearly 60 percent of this year’s 5.4 million-pound recreational quota, with the rest going to federally licensed charter boat captains, who were assigned a 49-day season starting June 1.