Federal fisheries regulators have added vermilion snapper to their list of overfished species in the Gulf of Mexico.

The designation requires the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council within one year to set up a plan to rebuild the population of the reef fish species common in the northern Gulf.

Vermilion snapper is the seventh Gulf species managed jointly by the Gulf Council and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to be tagged as overfished. Others are red snapper, three species of grouper, greater amberjack and red drum.

A conservation group praised NOAA for "stepping up to the plate" to solve problems with vermilion snapper.

"NOAA is doing what it needs to do," said Jill Jensen, assistant fisheries director for the Gulf Restoration Network. "We're done waiting."

Vermilion snapper has been on regulators' radar screens since at least 1998, when NOAA Fisheries reported to Congress that the species was on the verge of being overfished.

In November 1999, the agency advised the Gulf Council that federal law requires the appointed board of recreational and commercial fishing representatives to do something about overfishing of vermilion snapper.

NOAA Fisheries Regional Administrator Roy Crabtree, in St. Petersburg, informed the Gulf Council of the overfished designation for vermilion snapper in an Oct. 30 letter.

The designation is based on a 2001 assessment of the vermilion snapper population using data through 1999 and some commercial catch data from 2000.

The assessment suggested reductions of between 40 percent to 50 percent in the catch of vermilion snapper.

Options under consideration include a mix of new limits on the number and size of vermilion snapper that can be caught at a time.

No commercial catch quota exists for vermilion snapper now. For recreational fishermen, each vermilion snapper counts toward a general 20-fish bag limit and is subject to a 10-inch minimum size limit.

The Gulf Council's reef fish advisory panel has cast doubt on whether vermilion snapper really is overfished. The Gulf Council could ask for a new stock assessment.

"There's been a lot of discussion about data," said Stu Kennedy, a fisheries biologist for the Gulf Council.

The 2001 assessment used two models that returned mixed results about whether the stock was overfished.

Part of the problem has to do with the number of years of data used and the fact that vermilion snapper do not grow at uniform rates -- so smaller fish are not necessarily younger fish, Kennedy said.

Conservation groups are calling for the Gulf Council to take action and not keep talking about data.

Jensen, with the Gulf Restoration Network, said the overfished designation is valid because it is based on the best available science.

"(The Gulf Council needs) to stop examining mathematical models that tell them things they don't want to see or hear," she said.