Evolution of red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) science and management in the United States Atlantic Ocean ICES Journal of Marine Science

In the United States Atlantic snapper-grouper fishery, no single species has garnered more attention than red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus). The earliest assessments of this stock (i.e. 1998, 2009, 2010) showed a population that was being overexploited (biomass severely depleted) and undergoing overfishing (fishing mortality rate too high). Since then, scientific understanding of the stock and fishery has advanced, and more recent assessments have shown substantial progress towards recovery. In this Story from the Front Lines, we document some broad lessons learned during this period of recovery, including the criticality of fishery-independent surveys for understanding population dynamics, the benefits of stakeholder involvement, the challenges of regulating a multispecies fishery, and the utility of economic considerations in fishery management. Throughout, we describe specific research studies that have benefited the scientific enterprise, culminating in a large-scale undertaking referred to as the South Atlantic Red Snapper Research Program that is estimating red snapper absolute abundance. The lessons learned during the evolution of science and management for red snapper have broad implications, documented here in the hope of benefitting other fisheries around the globe.