The first draft of the "Fishery Management Plan for Sharks and Other Elasmobranchs in the Gulf of Mexico" was issued in February 1979 by the
GMFMC. It had been prepared by Environmental Science and Engineering, Inc., the company that had won the competitive bid for the plan.
The
GMFMC, which oversees fisheries in federal waters off Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, recently voted for staff to develop a scoping document for an SS amendment to its management plan.
Alternative management measures, such as a slot size (i.e., fish can only be retained when their length is between an upper and lower limit), cumulative length limits, or a first fish rule, have been proposed to the
GMFMC as strategies for reducing fishing mortality and discards in the recreational reef fish fishery (
GMFMC, 2004).
In November 1984, the Reef Fish Fishery Management Plan (
GMFMC (4)) was implemented to rebuild declining reef fish stocks.
The
GMFMC agenda stated: "The purpose of this workshop is to facilitate an educational exchange of information to help fishery managers and stakeholders gain a better understanding of potential benefits and challenges of sector separation in recreational fisheries managed by
GMFMC."
(2)
GMFMC (Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council).
5) Compartmentalization of shrimp fisheries management jurisdic tion2 among the
GMFMC, TPWD, LDWF, MDMR, ADCNR, and FFWCC (Caillouet et al., 2008).
The closure of the fishery from 15 February-15 March 2001 was the proposed management alternative adopted by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council in 1999 to be effective in spring of 2001 (Schirripa et al., 1999;
GMFMC, 200l, 2002).
Thus, an area that stretches from the Volusia-Flagler county line in northeast Florida to the Monroe-Collier county line in southwest Florida was defined in the early 1980s by the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic Fishery Management Councils as a mixing zone between the two stocks (
GMFMC and SAFMC, 1985; Fig.
artificial reefs to enhance fishing or surrounding artificial islands (Williams and Duane, 1975; Seaman and Sprague, 1991), or are segregated as special fishery management areas or reserves (
GMFMC, 1999).
waters and the increasing restrictions on both commercial and recreational red snapper catches (Gillig et al., 2001) have led to increased fishing pressure on other snapper species (Fischer et al., 2005), including both gray (Burton, 2001; Fischer et al., 2005) and lane snappers (
GMFMC (1)).
The shrimping industry in the Gulf of Mexico has criticized the bycatch reduction plans of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (
GMFMC).