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Comment by EdwardDiego | Hacker News Reader

Are the snapper perhaps a fair exchange for the US caused dramatic impacts on the health of the Colorado delta, and the resulting massive impact on the Kwapa, a people whose entire identity was based on the Colorado River?

Silly question, but I find the article's tone of polite outrage a bit hypocritical. Bonus points for the DRUGGGS outrage angle.

Especially when Texas used to be the province of Tejas, until the Anglos (who'd been invited) rebelled when Mexico tried to prevent illegal migration from the US, and banned slavery.

Maybe Texas is a fair trade for snapper?

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Try to ignore the political aspects of this for a moment. The entire biome of the Gulf is at stake here when a single species is threatened. The Gulf might seem like it's a huge body of water on paper (and I mean, it is) but it's a rather small salt water ecosystem by comparison. The smaller the ecosystem, the bigger the impact of a disruption. NOAA, for all of their faults and some questionable season closures, have helped successfully bring back several species from near extinction and in doing so helped keep the entire Gulf fishery alive. It's bigger than petty politics.

I've been fishing for snapper for the last 8 years in the Gulf off of the Florida coast, where most of the prized species are heavily regulated (and heavily fined for breaking regs). The Gulf has seen several rounds of disruption and keeps bouncing back. Keeping the Gulf healthy is not only the right thing to do from an environmental view, but also for what it provides to the people who live in states and countries surrounding it.

I fished snapper all my life in the Gulf as well thinking it was unique to the Gulf. I was delighted to find red snapper in Indonesia during a visit there. The genus Lutjanus is a fairly well distributed in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean and they are all tasty.

The beachside Indonesian practice is to cook them in smoke houses with coconut husks as fuel.

Anyway, snapper is everywhere, and everywhere over-fished.

I've fished the gulf for 50 years. The gulf is better stocked with fish now than in my youth. The thanks for this goes to the GCCA and state regs.

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