A recent study to measure the population of red snapper in the U.S. portion of the Gulf of Mexico found there’s way more red snapper than previously estimated.
Officials last week released the results of the Great Red Snapper Count, a three-year effort led by the Harte Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.
More than a dozen other universities were also involved in the project.
The results put the snapper population at more than 110 million – three times the earlier 36 million estimated by federal officials.
Scientists sampled both high relief areas like natural and artificial reefs, and low relief areas such as sand and mud bottom, to arrive at their absolute abundance estimate.
Before this study only the high-relief areas had been sampled but it turns out that approximately two-thirds of the gulf red snapper population was found to inhabit the low relief areas.
The study puts the red snapper population off the Florida coast at about 48 million.
More than 80 scientists were involved in the project, along with numerous “citizen scientists.”
In 2016, Congress provided funding for an independent study to better estimate the snapper population.
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