The following is a press release from the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance:
(Galveston, TX): Despite overwhelming public opposition and numerous fatal legal flaws, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has approved a measure that permanently strips commercial fishermen and seafood consumers of over a third of a million pounds of red snapper from the Gulf of Mexico every year.
"We’re disappointed that NMFS buckled under the political pressure from the Coastal “Conservation” Association (CCA). Amendment 28 has numerous defects that NMFS blatantly ignored, including that it wrongly rewards the recreational sector with a higher quota based on that sector’s prior overharvesting, will exacerbate stock depletion in half the Gulf of Mexico, and imposes unfair economic harms on the commercial sector without solving any of the problems in the recreational fishery. This is why fishermen and the public have consistently opposed this plan for years. NMFS once again made the wrong decision and it’s putting our businesses and the recovery of red snapper at risk."
