Earlier this summer, I wrote a quick article about the plight of the red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. Once a plentiful source of food for local people, the red snapper has been reduced to under 3 percent of its healthy population. The main causes are industrial overfishing, shrimp bycatch of juveniles, and habitat degradation.
It is the responsibility of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council to take action to protect this vital fishery from destruction, but it is failing to do so. Since I wrote the earlier article, the Council met and decided to delay taking any action on protecting the red snapper for at least another two years. There’s just too much money being made off of shrimp trawlers and other aspects of the red snapper’s destruction for them to do anything about it.
Two years from now may be too late for action to have a meaningful effect. It is conceivable that the red snapper could be practically wiped out in the Gulf of Mexico by then. That wouldn’t just wreak havoc on the valuable marine ecosystems there. It would also devastate local economies that rely on food from the sea.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is contemplating seeking federal government action to overrule the neglectful decision of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, but there are many in the Bush Administration who are exerting pressure on behalf of business interests who seek short term profit over long-term economic sustainability in the fishery.
Please, sign the petition put online by the Ocean Conservancy, urging the Secretary of Commerce to intervene so that the red snapper population of the Gulf of Mexico can recover, and then be managed in a more responsible and sustainable manner.
Until that intervention is taken, you can take some intervention of your own. Don’t eat shrimp or red snapper. You can endure the sacrifice.
