Red Snapper: Ecology and Fisheries in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico

<em>Abstract.</em>—Statistics on the commercial landings of red snapper <em>Lutjanus campechanus </em>in the United States have been recorded by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and its predecessors as far back as 1880. However, there are many gaps in the historical record. Censuses were conducted sporadically prior to 1949 and the water body where the catch was taken was not consistently recorded until 1963. Past assessments of the status of red snapper in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico have avoided these problems by using only data collected after the early 1960s. Unfortunately, there are indications the stock may have already been depressed by that time and the resulting lack of contrast in the data has made it difficult to estimate important benchmarks such as the maximum sustainable yield. For this reason, the participants of several SEDAR (Southeast Data and Assessment Review) workshops strongly recommended reconstructing the catches as far back as possible using whatever auxiliary information might be available. This paper uses statistics from several state and private agencies to supplement NMFS landings statistics and then uses historical accounts dating back to the 1840s to help fill the remaining gaps. The data suggest that a substantial red snapper fishery existed as early as 1872 and that by the turn of the century the landings were comparable to those of recent times, albeit heavily dependent on snapper grounds located in Mexico. The trends of the reconstructed landings are qualitatively consistent with major events in the history of the fishery, but considerable uncertainty remains over the many uncanvassed years between 1890 and the 1920s.