Panama City News Herald
February 6, 2008

Fishing for Answers

The first step on the road to recovery is to acknowledge there is a problem. That might be the biggest obstacle to resolving an impasse between area fishermen and state outdoors officials.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will hold a public meeting Thursday at Bay Point Marriott Resort in Panama City Beach to discuss proposed new restrictions on red snapper fishing. The state, citing research that shows the population of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico has become dangerously low, wants to adopt for coastal waters the same regulations on the length of the season and the size of the catch that are to be used in federal waters (which begin nine miles offshore) beginning later this month.

Local anglers worry that those rules will squeeze the economic life out of the recreational fishing industry, which relies heavily on red snapper to lure customers to charter boats. Few people are going to pay the charter fees if they’re not allowed to catch an abundance of fish.

Of course, the government’s counterargument makes sense: There won’t be any red snapper to catch if they continue to be overfished. The industry will wind up cutting its own throat.

And therein lies the rub: Many captains contend that the threat of overfishing has been overblown, and that the red snapper population is more robust than the government says it is, thus making tighter restrictions unnecessary. How do you persuade someone when he rejects the premise of your argument?

Complicating matters is that Texas has been resisting pressure to adopt the federal standard for its state waters. Mississippi and Louisiana have already complied, and Alabama is reportedly holding out to see what Florida does. Environmentalists who support the uniform rules argue that two wrongs ­ Texas and Florida resisting change ­ don’t make a right. But it’s also understandable that anglers see no reason to cave so long as the Lone Star State re-enacts the Alamo against a bureaucratic onslaught.

If the industry indicated that it would be receptive to fresh data on red snapper, then the state could delay making a decision on new regulations while more research is conducted. Even if that’s not feasible, there is still another path to consider.

The News Herald has previously supported marketbased solutions to the red snapper issue, such as finding ways to grant private ownership of the fisheries that provide incentive to conserve (an example would be issuing individual fishing quotas, or IFQs). That approach has succeeded with commercial fishermen around the globe. However, some local anglers contend it would not be practical for the recreational industry.

Nevertheless, IFQs have proved to be more effective at rebuilding fishing stocks than government restrictions. Shortened seasons only encourage a race to catch as many fish as quickly as possible. Limits on sizes force anglers to throw back catch, which often kills the fish anyway. It’s worth trying to solve the problems with recreational enforcement. We urge the industry and regulators to pursue marketbased alternatives to heavyhanded rules that threaten to damage the local economy.