Three decisions involving saltwater fisheries occurred during February. One was fairly-well publicized; two flew under the radar. Each reveals the mindset of fisheries management in North Carolina.
Anglers may have heard about a Feb. 18 public hearing in New Bern, held by the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission to discuss a proposal by Dr. Louis Daniel, director of the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries. Under pressure from the National Marine Fisheries Service to reduce accidental gill-netting of sea turtles — and from an impending lawsuit by a turtle-protection group — Daniel recommended a temporary May 15-Dec. 15 closure of sections of Pamlico, Core and Back sounds and the Cape Fear River to large-mesh gill nets.
In front of an audience of mostly net fishermen, the NCMFC dumped Daniel’s idea and voted for a proposal from a commercial fish dealer to allow gill-net use four days a week.
Earlier in the month, Daniel and Gordon Myers, the executive director of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, sent letters to Roy Crabtree, Southeast region director for the National Marine Fisheries Service, who wanted to know if the agencies thought Atlantic sturgeon should be listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. They responded that Atlantic sturgeon shouldn’t have ESA protection and asked for further studies, even though a ban on sturgeon harvests has existed since 1991. Moreover, their responses to Crabtree contained contradictory statements:
Daniel: “The DMF believes that there is evidence that management measures enacted by the state of North Carolina and the ASMFC are resulting in positive population trends.”
Myers: “Recent information from Albemarle and Pamlico sounds suggests that the Carolina DPS (distinct population segments) of Atlantic sturgeon has shown little improvement in size and age distribution since 1991.”
We don’t know which conclusion is stranger. NCDMF says sturgeon numbers are growing, while the Commission sees no improvement. Yet neither agency’s leader wants ESA threatened or endangered listing for a fish that can’t be harvested legally because there are so few of them. A source also told us the Commission rejected its own staff report that sturgeons should be listed as endangered or threatened.
After the Feb. 18 vote in New Bern and the letters from Daniel and Myers to NMFS, one conclusion seems inevitable — gill-net use will continue in North Carolina’s saltwater until it’s halted by outside forces.
Of course, commercial fishermen don’t deliberately target sea turtles or sturgeon, but sometimes their nets injure or kill them.
The major problem with nets in North Carolina waters is timing — the NCDMF allows them to be set to intercept fish headed for shallow waters in the spring to spawn. Killing fish before they can reproduce isn’t a great idea. Postspawn-only gill netting could work and produce more fish, but as Feb. 18 proved, netters and the state agencies that regulate them won’t accept restrictions. That may be a dangerous path to follow.
Clearly, economic hardships are squeezing netters, but by fighting any restrictions or adjustments while demanding state agencies be similarly unbending, their lack of compromise eventually may force removal of all nets from N.C. waters.
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