Anyone who has paid attention to Gulf of Mexico red snapper management in the last several years knows that it is the most controversial of all Gulf species. Though controversial, there is one thing that almost everyone agrees on – the need for better data. At the upcoming January meeting, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (Council) is slated to take a major step in the right direction by voting on an electronic logbook (ELB) requirement for the for-hire portion of the fishery.
Electronic logbooks deliver managers more timely and accurate information so they can make more informed management decisions, but they also make good business sense for coastal economies and the charter fleet. For communities like Orange Beach and Gulf Shores that rely so heavily upon the tourism income generated by fishing, this means more stability and better information for our Chambers of Commerce and Convention and Tourism Bureaus to plan and market to potential customers.
The health of the Gulf’s red snapper and its charter fishery comes down to one thing: better management. And better management comes from better data. Electronic logbooks are proven to be able to report catches to managers in almost real-time. But for this to happen, the Council must pass the electronic reporting amendment at its January meeting.
By requiring electronic logbooks in the charter for-hire fleet, the Council will be following the recommendations from the preeminent body tasked with advising the nation on science and technology, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The NAS has reviewed the Gulf’s main recreational fishery survey twice and both times found that electronic reporting should be the tool used by the charter for-hire fleet to report their catches.
The NAS’s first review of recreational data collection programs concluded in 2006. They recommended that electronic technologies should be explored for data collection in the for-hire fishery. But this recommendation was never implemented. Again in their 2016 review, the NAS repeated the recommendation. They said National Marine Fisheries Service needs to modernize the fleet’s data collection by moving toward electronic reporting.
The reality of an ELB reporting system is that managers and scientists can look in on the fishery at a moment’s notice. Since every fish is accounted for with an ELB, they will be able to quickly modify season lengths and adjust management buffers based on actual data and give scientists a real-time picture of the fishery in the cases of natural and man-made disasters. All of these abilities make management flexible, pragmatic, and places a level of certainty and timeliness in the fishery that has never been witnessed since the Gulf’s first fishery management plan in 1984.
2016 Alabama Media Group