Areas on the Texas coast are being closed to fishing while an arctic blast sweeps much of the country, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced Saturday.
The closure will take effect at midnight on Monday through 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.
"The high mortality that a freeze can cause may deplete fish stocks for years," Robin Riechers, director of TPWD’s coastal fisheries division, said in a release.
"Protection of the surviving fish during the few days when they are especially vulnerable to capture would likely shorten the time period for overall recovery of coastal species, especially spotted sea trout."
These locations are closed: City by the Sea, the Raquetball, Kon Tiki, Bahia Bay, Cove Harbor, La Buena Vida, Little Bay, Palm Harbor, Rockport Harbor, Sea Gun Marina, Army Hole, Brazos Santiago Pass South Jetty, Point Isabel, Moses Lake, Offats Bayou, Matagorda, Palacios Shrimp Basin, Padre Island, Entergy Outfall, Conn Brown and Port Mansfield. For more information on locations of closures, check the TPWD website.
These areas are characterized by deep water that can provide thermal refuge to marine life during the freeze. Fish will congregate to them when temperatures drop in shallower waters. The last time TPWD shut down coastal fishing areas because of freezing conditions was in January 2018.
Frigid water temperatures can lead to mortalities and there are sure to be localized fish kills in the days ahead. However, TPWD science director Mark Fisher said the ecological impacts of this weather event will not resemble the freezes in 1983 and 1989, devastating events that saw tens of millions of dead fish, marred coastal fisheries for years beyond and forever changed the way they were managed.
A sheath of frozen salt spray coats the vessel Houston Pilot 3 off Galveston on Christmas Day, 1983 when temperature fell to 14 degrees on the island. The days-long, record-setting freeze that gripped the Texas coast over Christmas Week that year killed as many as 20 million inshore fish and triggered changes that continue impacting coastal fisheries management and recreational anglers three decades later. Houston Chronicle staff file photo
Picasa/APc“We’re not expecting large-scale fish kills from this one. It’s not going to be cold enough for long enough,” Fisher said.
“However, what we’re going to see primarily is a big event for cold-stunned sea turtles.”
Green sea turtles become lethargic and have trouble swimming once water temperatures drop below 50 degrees. Many will die after being struck by boats, taken by predators or will freeze to death after drifting ashore.
All hands will be on deck between fisheries staff, game wardens and volunteers to collect these floating turtles, rehab them and return them to the water when the weather warms. And these rescue efforts are quite common. Just last month, coastal fisheries staff rescued cold-stunned turtles in East Matagorda Bay.
They weren’t always so common, though. A 2018 article by Shannon Tompkins expounds how green sea turtles have proliferated along the Texas coast in recent years, where mere decades ago there were barely any outside of the deep lower coast. The species, which is federally listed as threatened, has expanded its range northward in response to milder winters and population recovery has been assisted by conservation efforts and the mandated implementation of turtle-excluder devices in shrimp trawlers during the 1990s.
“We have already begun to find cold-stunned turtles during this bout of very cold temperatures,” said Donna Shaver, Texas coordinator for Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network.
“Only a few have been found so far, but we expect that during the next week, hundreds to a few thousand green turtles could be found cold stunned in Texas.”
Juvenile green sea turtles such as this deceased young turtle washed ashore on Matagorda Island are one of several coastal marine species vulnerable to life-threatening effects of low water temperatures from this week's siege of cold weather gripping Texas bays.
Shannon Tompkins/Houston ChronicleTwo other fish species that have expanded their range in Texas because of climate change are also likely to be most impacted by the impending freeze. Gray snapper and snook are extremely intolerant to low water temperatures and will be probable casualties in the coming days.
“Both of them used to be limited mostly to extreme South Texas and these past several years they’ve extended their range along the entire Texas coast,” said Fisher.
Aside from those particularly vulnerable species, major mortality events are not expected as the freeze will not be drawn out and the temperature drop was gradual.
Large fish kills can be reported to TPWD’s law enforcement communications office at 281-842-8100 or 512-389-4848.
The penalty for fishing in a closed area is a Class C misdemeanor.
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Texas coastal areas will be closed to fishing due to freeze - Houston Chronicle
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