Audio By Carbonatix
Independent Journalism in Miami Needs You
We need to raise $10,000 by August 9 to support the reporting our community depends on. Reader support keeps us independent and is playing a larger role in funding local journalism and shaping what comes next. If you believe independent local journalism matters, make a contribution today.
Fish much?
Not anymore. New federal regulation outlaws fishing for Red Snapper in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas.
The U.S. government says the red snapper population off the Atlantic coast is at 3 percent of what it was 60 years ago, and is still dwindling.
Fishermen disagree. The one NPR spoke to in the radio piece embedded above says “the amount of fish we’re catching per trip would fall. It would not be consistently the same over the last 10 years. And it definitely would not be getting better.”
Red Snapper has been a delicacy on Miami restaurant menus since restaurants were invented. A quick survey of online menus shows Red Snapper is listed at Michael’s Genuine, served whole and wood roasted, but not Area 31, probably our city’s most ecologically minded seafood house.
If what the government says is true, we’d rather have snapper in the ocean than on our plate.