The same headline surfaces at least every few months, sometimes mere days apart, but often enough that they’ve become almost routine: The U.S. Coast Guard has seized yet another load of illegally caught fish, mostly red snapper, a few miles into the Gulf of Mexico. In late September it was 500 pounds, then 900 more two days later. Last week, the haul was an impressive 2,200 pounds.
These seizures happen so regularly that a unique coalition of academics and law-enforcement agencies recently stepped up its efforts to convince the Texas public to take IUU fishing, shorthand for “illegal, unreported, and unregulated,” more seriously. An October episode of Beachcombing, a weekly web series produced by Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, invited Coast Guard officers, Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens, and Harte scientists to discuss their joint purpose: explaining the very real, if somewhat underplayed, threat these illicit operations pose to fisheries along the Texas coast.
“American fishing vessels are very invested in making sure that the stock is well-preserved,” said Coast Guard Cdr. Michelle Foster. “They pay taxes, they do everything to maintain this fishery. Illegal fishing does not do that, and so this is a major threat to our food and a lot of people’s ways of life.”
The episode begins with Jace Tunnell, the institute’s director of community engagement, sifting through discarded longline floats and gill nets that, besides being illegal for U.S. anglers, can serve as a lethal trap for dolphins, turtles, and other marine life. Later, he visits a Coast Guard impound yard to inspect dozens of lanchas, the slim, 20 to 30-foot vessels that speed out of Northern Mexico and can harvest hundreds (if not thousands) of pounds of fish each trip.
Provided the Coast Guard doesn’t stop them, that is. According to Cdr. Foster, in 2022 the Coast Guard interdicted 87 lanchas—that’s one every four days or so—and detained nearly 400 illegal fishermen. She calls the 15,000 pounds of ill-gotten fish seized in the process “a drop in the bucket” compared to what eludes their clutches. Harte associate research scientist Dr. Kesley Banks and her team have begun working directly with the Coast Guard just to help establish sustainability levels and a reasonable quota for legitimate anglers.
“At one point red snapper season was three days in the Gulf of Mexico,” Banks said. “More fish were leaving to Mexico than were being harvested by United States citizens, so this project’s really important to really get an accurate estimate on this. That way we can really start to have an effective management for this population.”
Controlled by Mexico’s powerful cartels, lanchas can operate anywhere between one and 50 miles offshore; some of their longlines, each bearing hundreds of hooks, can themselves stretch for miles. Provided the boats aren’t intercepted, they bring their catch straight back to Mexico, where the proceeds—often from under-the-table sales to shady American buyers—get funneled into other cartel activities. Sometimes the cartels cut out the middleman and force the lancheros to smuggle drugs or humans directly in their boats.
“They’re not coming here, grandma and grandpa, to fish for their family, to put fish on the table at the end of the day,” said Coast Guard Lt. Shane Gunderson. “They’re coming here in an organized fashion with a plan to commit crimes, which is the taking of fish illegally from our seas. That activity is very lucrative for them, and it’s backed by transnational criminal organizations.”
Last week, as reported by The Maritime Executive, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned five members of the Gulf Cartel, including the two owners of the Playa Bagdad lancha camp near Matamoros. The move “highlights how transnational criminal organizations like the Gulf Cartel rely on a variety of illicit schemes like IUU fishing to fund their operations,” said Bradley T. Smith, acting under secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence .
Until the Coast Guard and TPWD began working with Dr. Banks’ team, there was no real way for anyone to know exactly how negatively IUU fishing was affecting the Gulf’s fisheries and fisherfolk alike, just that it was a serious problem. To Cdr. Foster, their conclusions will go a long way toward helping everyday anglers understand the steps they can take to ensure their favorite offshore fishing spots remain as healthy as possible.
“Once they become aware, I would hope they would join any of the coastal conservation groups or any of the fishing groups so that they can learn about sustainable fishing practices and why this illegal fishing is so harmful,” she said.