“Laws are like sausages; it is better not to see them being made.” — Otto von Bismarck
Nobody said getting a gamefish bill for red drum, spotted seatrout and striped bass passed by the North Carolina General Assembly and signed into law by the governor would be easy.
But this is getting to be ridiculous. Then again, because money is involved, it may not be so ridiculous.
Last year a similar bill (HB 918) was bottled up in a committee and never saw the House or Senate floors for debate and votes. This year an almost identical bill (HB 353) that would protect these three species from commercial exploitation — specks, reds and stripers are a miniscule two percent part of the total commercial catch — appears on the way to suffering the same fate.
That’s because a deal apparently was struck to hold up HB 353 in order to move a more important piece of legislation, the proposed fiscal budget. We say “apparently” because no other scenario makes sense, and legislative sources have said this is what likely happened.
We also say “apparently” because nothing is certain. Nobody in the legislature will confirm or deny the deal, which is normal in backroom politics. Calls made to key legislators have gone unreturned. The Coastal Conservation Association, which has been put in charge of the fight to get the gamefish bill heard and passed, also apparently still thinks there’s a chance.
We hope that’s true, but the situation doesn’t look good.
Politics, stacked decks and backroom deals have led us to this point. That much is clear. What is more clear is North Carolina’s laws concerning the commercial sale of saltwater fish, whether regulated by weight quotas or numbers of fish, hold open the door for abuse.
Take, for instance, red drum. North Carolina accounts for 90 percent of commercial red drum landings in the entire United States, so there’s simply no way on God’s green earth the annual quota (250,000 pounds) can meet that demand — unless fish are being netted and sold “off the books.” It obviously makes no sense that commercial forces would fight so hard to hold a gamefish bill at bay if, as they claim, they’re only catching and selling this relatively small amount of redfish.
The numbers, in fact, are all on the side of gamefish status: North Carolina once had 200 boat builders, now there are 72; recreational fishing in 2010 accounted for 17,758 jobs and $1.6 billion in income annually, while of 1,114 active commercial fishermen, only 87 made more than $2,000 by selling these fish; North Carolina spotted seatrout, overfished from 1991 through 2008 and now listed as depleted, account for 70 percent of commercially-caught specks in the U.S.; during January and February, trawlers operating off Oregon Inlet killed and dumped thousands of striped bass while following state harvest regulations.
No one says passage of the state’s fiscal budget isn’t important, but recreational anglers rightfully are frustrated by a process that allows a bill that would help the resource and increase jobs to be tied up, muzzled and kept in the dark like a kidnap victim.
In the real world, the door would be kicked in and arrests made.
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