Red snapper mortality rates are down, and the fish are surviving to older ages where they are able to reproduce significantly more efficiently, according to a recent LSU study.
The study was done by James Cowan, professor in the LSU Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, and graduate student Dannielle Kulaw and former graduate student Melissa Woods Jackson.
Red snapper can live to be about 57 years old, Cowan said, but the team could barely find any that were older than about 18 or 19. Generally fish with the ability to live to an old age will have some years when a lot of the young fish die and some years when a lot of the young fish live.
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