A.G. Gancarski
Governors of southern states, led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, are teaming up to ask Washington for more control over the red snapper fishing season in the Atlantic.
Govs. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Henry McMaster of South Carolina joined a letter urging Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to request “state management of red snapper and other reef fishes in the South Atlantic.”
DeSantis has spoken out for years about the disparity between the freewheeling lack of restrictions on fishermen on the Gulf Coast (where the season is 126 days long this year) and the more draconian guidelines imposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on the Atlantic Ocean.
The letter says “flawed data and regulations … threaten the economies of our coastal communities” and urges the Donald Trump administration to “stop the harmful impacts of Amendment 59 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery.”
Last year’s Atlantic recreational red snapper season was one day long in July, given that the “stock assessment concluded that the population of South Atlantic red snapper is recovering, but remains overfished and that too many red snapper are being caught and discarded dead.”
NOAA’s Sustainable Fisheries Division has yet to release guidance as of this writing, and they didn’t immediately offer comment when called.
DeSantis said earlier this Spring he was optimistic the Trump administration would be more lenient than the Joe Biden White House.
“I think the administration is supportive of it. I have mentioned it to the President, but I definitely mentioned it also to the Secretary of Commerce. And I know they’re still filling out NOAA and they’re doing, still, all that. And there’s a lot of irons in the fire, but returning this to state management would be a home run.”
The home run may be coming still. But for this year, the game is in late innings, and the Trump administration hasn’t prioritized DeSantis’ repeated request.
