Felix Cox

Region: Coastal Plain

Topics: Commercial Fishing, Red Snapper

Mr. Cox is a fisherman from Aransas Pass who has shrimped the Texas coast and worked the Gulf's offshore reefs, particularly for red snapper, for many years. He's become increasingly concerned about the long-term profitability and sustainability of the fishery. Due to that, he is working with non-profits such as Environmental Defense, and with regulators, to develop better schemes for managing the reef fishery. The red snapper population is of particular concern:  the fishery was classified as severely overfished by Congress in 1997, and the US Department of Health stated that snapper would not survive in the wild if populations did not rebound by at least 20%.  Mr. Cox is working on one of the more promising solutions, called the ITQ [Individual Transferable Quotas] system, which would apportion marketable rights to the harvest, and discourage the dangerous and wasteful derby system.

Interviewed

February 23, 2000
Aransas Pass, Texas
Reels 2077 and 2078