Red Snapper (Lutjanus campechanus)

• The Gulf and South Atlantic red snapper populations are currently at very low levels (overfished), and both red snapper populations are being harvested at too high a rate (overfishing).
• In addition to overharvest and discards of red snapper in the directed fishery, bycatch (unintended and unused harvest) of juvenile red snapper by the Gulf shrimp fisheries has contributed to the depletion of Gulf red snapper. Managers are working to reduce the bycatch of red snapper in shrimp fisheries.
• Snapper is low in saturated fat and sodium and is a very good source of protein. For more information, see Nutrition Facts. (USDA)
• Over 3.1 million pounds of red snapper, valued at almost $10 million, were caught commercially in 2007.

Sustainability Status

Biomass: The Gulf of Mexico breeding population is 6% of the target size and the South Atlantic breeding population is 3% of the target size.
Overfishing: Yes (S. Atlantic and Gulf)
Overfished: Yes (S. Atlantic and Gulf)
Fishing and habitat: Red snapper are primarily harvested with hook and line. Commercial fishermen typically attach multiple hooks to a vertical line with a weight at the bottom. Little scientific information exists on the physical impacts on marine habitats from this type of gear, although they are thought to be minimal. Red snapper may also be harvested with longlines and spears.
Bycatch: Unintended catch includes sea turtles, sea birds, and other species of reef fish, primarily including groupers, vermilion snapper, and gray triggerfish.
Aquaculture: Mutton snapper, a close relative of red snapper, are being researched as a possible candidate for offshore aquaculture. Red snapper have been grown in culture facilities and released for experiments on potential enhancement of wild stocks.

Science and Management

Red snapper are managed as two separate fisheries, one in the South Atlantic and the other in the Gulf of Mexico. In the South Atlantic, red snapper has been managed since 1983 through the Snapper Grouper Fishery Management Plan (FMP), by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC). Recreational fishing regulations include an aggregate bag limit of 10 snapper with a maximum of 2 red snapper and a 20-inch (total length) minimum size. Commercial fishing regulations include a 20-inch (total length) minimum size limit, gear restrictions (vertical hook-and-line, bandit gear, spearfishing, powerheads only), and snapper-grouper permit/reporting requirements. Regulatory changes are currently being proposed by the SAFMC and NOAA Fisheries Service to end overfishing of South Atlantic red snapper and rebuild the stock.

In the Gulf of Mexico, red snapper is managed by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (GMFMC) through the Reef Fish FMP, implemented in 1984. Since the late 1980s, Gulf red snapper has been considered overfished and undergoing overfishing. Mortality of juvenile red snapper caught in shrimp trawls has hindered the rebuilding of the red snapper stock. High fishing mortality and bycatch in the directed commercial and recreational fisheries for red snapper also constrain rebuilding. Gulf red snapper is under a rebuilding program to restore the stock by 2032. Recreational fishing regulations include a daily bag limit of 2 fish per person, a season closure, an annual quota of 2.45 million pounds, a 16-inch (total length) minimum size limit, and a limited access program for for-hire vessels. Commercial fishing regulations include a 13-inch minimum size limit, an annual quota of 2.55 million pounds, gear restrictions, closed areas, and an individual fishing quota (IFQ) program. The IFQ program allocates individual shares of the commercial quota to fishermen. The fishermen may harvest their quotas whenever they choose to do so and must report their harvest.

In January 2008, NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service implemented long-term regulations to address overfishing and bycatch in the Gulf of Mexico red snapper and shrimp fisheries. These measures include revising the rebuilding plan, reducing the total allowable catch (TAC) of red snapper to 5 million pounds, limiting recreational harvest with a 2 fish daily bag limit and shorter fishing season, prohibiting for-hire (charter) captain and crew from having a bag limit, modifying the commercial minimum size limit, establishing gear requirements to reduce bycatch, and implementing measures to constrain shrimp harvest should red snapper bycatch reduction targets not be met.

Life History and Habitat

Life history, including information on the habitat, growth, feeding, and reproduction of a species, is important because it affects how a fishery is managed. Snapper-grouper fishery management is difficult due to the large number of species in the management unit (for example, there are 73 species in the South Atlantic Snapper Grouper Management Complex) and a lack of basic data on many species. In addition, many of these species grow slowly, take a long time to reach reproductive maturity, and live a long time, so some species take years to fully recover from overfishing.

• Geographic range: Red snapper populations range from North Carolina to the Florida Keys and throughout the Gulf of Mexico to the Yucatan.
• Habitat: Depths from 33 to 623 feet. Free-swimming larval stages live in the water column. Juveniles inhabit shallow waters and are common over sandy or muddy bottom habitat. Adults are typically bottom-dwellers and usually associate with hard structures on the continental shelf that have moderate to high relief, such as coral reefs, artificial reefs, rocky hard-bottom substrates, ledges and caves, sloping soft-bottom areas, and limestone outcroppings.
• Life span: Long-lived; maximum age reported is 57 years in Gulf of Mexico; maximum of 54 years in the South Atlantic
• Food: Free swimming larvae prey on zooplankton; adults prey opportunistically on fish, shrimp, crab, worms, cephalopods (octopus, squid, etc.), and some planktonic items.
• Growth rate: Moderate
• Maximum size: 39.7 inches; 50 pounds
• Reaches reproductive maturity: Females are mature at 11 to 13 inches total length.
• Reproduction: Gonochorists (meaning there are two distinct sexes)
• Spawning season: Varies with location; from May to October, peaking in July through September off the southeastern U.S.
• Spawning ground: Shelf edge environments of moderate to high structural relief
• Migrations: Red snapper do not migrate but can move long distances. They live in both pelagic (open ocean) and benthic (ocean bottom) habitats during their life cycle.
• Predators: Predators include almost any of the large carnivorous fish in grass beds and other inshore areas where young snappers reside (such as jacks, groupers, sharks, barracudas, and morays); large sea mammals and turtles are other potential predators
• Commercial or recreational interest: Both
• Distinguishing characteristics: Long triangular face with upper margin sloping more strongly than the lower; jaws are equal or the lower slightly projecting; some enlarged canine teeth; tend to be redder with deeper water

Role in the Ecosystem

The fishery typically operates in association with natural and artificial structures with higher relief from the bottom.

Additional Information

Young snapper are taken as bycatch by shrimp trawlers in the Gulf of Mexico. To reduce this bycatch, fishery managers require fish bycatch reduction devices (BRDs) in shrimp trawls. BRDs are designed to allow fish to exit the net while shrimp are retained.

Market name: Genuine red snapper, Snapper
Vernacular names: Caribbean red snapper, Mexican snapper
Several other fish are marketed as Snapper.

Biomass

Biomass refers to the amount of red snapper in the ocean. Scientists cannot collect and weigh every single fish to determine biomass, so they use models to estimate it instead. These biomass estimates can help determine if a stock is being fished too heavily or if it may be able to tolerate more fishing pressure. Managers can then make appropriate changes in the regulations of the fishery. South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico red snapper biomass is presented as spawning stock biomass (SSB), the amount of red snapper in the population at reproductive maturity. The most recent assessment of South Atlantic red snapper indicates the population has been overfished since 1970 and spawning biomass is well below the target level. Gulf red snapper was first declared overfished in 1988; a series of management measures has been implemented since then to rebuild the stock. Currently, Gulf red snapper biomass remains very low.

Note: Gulf and South Atlantic red snapper spawning stock biomass are presented on different scales in the graph (Gulf in millions of fish and South Atlantic in metric tons)

Landings

Landings refer to the amount of catch that is brought to land. Gulf snapper landings make up the majority of total commercial landings.

Note: U.S. commercial landings are presented in the graph.

Biomass and Landings

Are landings and biomass related? Landings are heavily dependent on biomass, management measures in the fishery, and fishing effort.

Note: In the graph, it appears that landings exceed biomass at times, but this is not the case as biomass and landings are presented on different scales. Gulf biomass is presented in millions of fish; and landings and South Atlantic biomass are presented in metric tons.

Data sources:
Biomass from NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center Southeast Data, Assessment, and Review (SEDAR) - Stock Assessment Report of SEDAR 7, Gulf of Mexico Red Snapper (2005), Stock Assessment Report for South Atlantic Red Snapper (2008)

Landings from NMFS Annual Commercial Landing Statistics Website using "SNAPPER, RED" as species and "ATLANTIC AND GULF"

Important Dates

South Atlantic
1880 – First recorded landings in the South Atlantic Bight
1900s – Recreational offshore head boat fishery begins
1983 – FMP for the Snapper Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region approved
1988 – Amendment 1 to Snapper Grouper FMP in the South Atlantic prohibits trawl gear in the directed snapper grouper fishery south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and north of Cape Canaveral, Florida
1997 – Amendment 8 limits effort in the snapper grouper fishery
1998 – Amendment 11 establishes proxies and benchmarks for determining overfished or overfishing status
2007 – Red snapper assessment determines population is severely overfished and undergoing overfishing; SAFMC begins work on Amendment 17 to end overfishing

Gulf of Mexico
1984 – Reef Fish FMP approved for the Gulf of Mexico
1988 – First Gulf red snapper assessment indicates red snapper is significantly overfished; fishing mortality rate reductions as much as 60 to 70 percent deemed necessary
1990 – Amendment 1 to Reef Fish FMP sets objectives to stabilize long-term population levels of all reef fish species and a framework for TAC to allow annual management changes; sets a red snapper 7 fish recreational bag limit and 3.1 million pound commercial quota to begin a rebuilding program for the stock (goal set for 2000); also establishes gear restrictions and a bag limit for reef fish captured incidentally in other longline operations
1991 – Amendment 3 establishes a new Gulf red snapper target year of 2007
1992 – Amendment 4 establishes moratorium on new commercial reef fish permits for 3 years
1994 – Amendment 5 establishes gear restrictions, an SMZ off the Alabama coast, a closed area, and required head and fins on all finfish landed (except oceanic migratory species)
1994 – Amendment 9 extends reef fish permit moratorium
1995 – Amendment 8 establishes a red snapper Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) system; repealed in 1996
1998 – Amendment 15 establishes program to limit effort to address overcapitalization in the fishery - the "2 for 1" program
1999 – Rebuilding plan implemented for Gulf of Mexico
2003 – Amendment 20 establishes 3-year moratorium on issuance of charter and headboat vessel permits
2005 – Latest rebuilding plan implemented for Gulf of Mexico
2005 – Amendment 18A addresses maximum crew size, use of reef fish for bait, commercial vessel monitoring systems, simultaneous commercial and recreational harvest, TAC framework changes, and sea turtle/smalltooth sawfish bycatch mortality measures; Amendment 22 specifies bycatch reporting methodologies for the reef fishery; Amendment 24 replaces commercial reef fish permit moratorium with a permanent limited access system
2006 – Amendment 25 replaces for-hire permit moratorium with a permanent limited access system
2007 – Final rule implements interim measures to reduce overfishing of Gulf red snapper including reducing commercial and recreational quotas, commercial minimum size limit, and recreational bag limit, prohibiting retention of red snapper under the bag limit for captain and crew of a vessel operating as a charter or headboat, and establishing a target level of reduction of shrimp trawl bycatch mortality of red snapper
2008 – NMFS implements long-term regulations to address overfishing and bycatch in the Gulf of Mexico red snapper and shrimp fisheries. These measures include revising the rebuilding plan, reducing the total allowable catch (TAC) of red snapper to 5 million pounds, limiting recreational harvest with a 2 fish daily bag limit and shorter fishing season, prohibiting for-hire (charter) captain and crew from having a bag limit, modifying commercial minimum size limits and establishing gear requirements to reduce bycatch, and implementing measures to constrain shrimp harvest should red snapper bycatch reduction targets not be met.

Notes and Links

General Information:
NMFS Southeast Regional Office

NMFS Sustainability Species Identification for Red snapper

Fishery Management:
South Atlantic Fishery Management Council Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region (1983) and Amendments

Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council Reef Fish Fishery Management Plan and Amendments

Stock Assessments:
NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center Southeast Data, Assessment, and Review (SEDAR) - Stock Assessment Report of SEDAR 7, Gulf of Mexico Red Snapper (2005)

Stock Assessment Report for South Atlantic Red Snapper (2008)

Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Report (SAFE) for the Snapper Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic (2005)