Prospects for Management Reform in Gulf of Mexico Recreational Fisheries

Recreational fishing for popular species like red snapper and grouper in the Gulf of Mexico follows a pattern that is well known in commercial fisheries: fishing under regulated open access promotes short, unpredictable seasons, shrinking bag limits, and large and persistent overharvests. With federal fishing seasons at all-time lows and conflicts increasing between state and federal regulators, anglers are losing fishing opportunities and many in the Gulf’s for-hire industry struggle to operate viable businesses. Red snapper is in the spotlight, but many overfished species are on the same path. Gulf of Mexico commercial fisheries rationalization has promoted economic benefits and accountability to annual catch limits, but most recreational fisheries are managed under regulated open access with relatively poor catch accounting. For many reef fish species, recreational fishing represents over half of total fishing mortality. Yet innovation in recreational management reform is lagging, in part because regulators’ attention is diverted to contentious policy issues such as sector allocations. This talk reviews policy challenges in mixed-use fisheries, such as sector and sub-sector allocation disputes, the state of for-hire and private recreational fisheries management, and prospects for rights-based management reform in mixed use fisheries. We also introduce the Gulf Headboat Collaborative, an affiliation of headboat operators who are testing rights-based management in Gulf of Mexico recreational fisheries through an experimental fishing permit (EFP). This two-year pilot program represents cooperation between industry, government, academia, and the NGO community, providing a unique opportunity for empirical evaluation and an innovative model for adaptive fisheries management