Fishing
By Richard Seale
Last month, I posed the question,
“Are the current plethora of fishing
regulations, both commercial and
recreational, supported by scientific
facts, or are we suffering from bu
reaucratic arrogance of some sort?”
My promise was to try to shed some
light on this question in this months
article. Several calls were made to NC
Division of Marine Fisheries, and a
lot of time was spent on several Web
pages. To be. honest, the data volume
is siniply overwhelming. There is no
way I can summarize in this article
all that is going on in fisheries man
agement, hence the headline.
On a rainy day, those of you with
Internet access can opt to spend time
looking up what might interest you.
For those without Internet access,
many printed documents are avail
able to the public if you visit the NC
Division of Marine Fisheries (NCD-
MF) office at 3441 Arendell Street
in Morehead Gity. This building is
just east of the Community College.
Louis Daniel is the Director of Ma
rine Fisheries, and Patricia Smith is
Public Information Officer. Louis is a
busy man, but if time permits, he will
talk with you. Patricia is much more
accessible and can guide you into
the maze of regulatory agencies and
information sources.
By Federal law. North Carolina
must meet the size, creel and sea
son limits set by Fed^al Fishery
Management commissions. Should
North Carolina not abide by these
rules within Federal waters, punitive
actions would be taken against the
State. Federal waters are all waters
three miles from shore. On the DMF
Web page is the title “Proclamations.”
You can opt to receive these as they
are issued—which I do. However, I
normally get 5 to 10 proclamations a
week covering such topics as “Wa
ters closed to shellfish harvest due to
pollution from runoff” or what the
season and poundage limits are for
commercial harvest of flounder in
the ocean.
One of the cornerstone mandates
of the regulations is that each state
must create and maintain a Fisher
ies Management Plan for all finfish
and shellfish in its waters. For 25
years, I have been involved on a
voluntary basis with the NCDMF
Crustacean Advisory Committee.
This committee has dealt with crabs
and shrimp over the years. These
committees take public comments,
listen to scientific reports and find
ings, hear recommendations from
commercial and recreational fishers
and from the NCDMF. All of these
inputs are refined into a Fisheries
Management Plan (FMP). In the case
of the Blue Crab, the NC FMP is a
671 page book. These plans are given
final approval by the North Carolina
Fisheries Management Commission,
members of which are appointed by
the Governor. The meetings of this
committee are announced in the
newspaper. The sites of the meetings
move up and down the coast. The
public can attend and comment at
these meetings.
So what are the regulatory groups
that have impacts on our North
Carolina fisheries? The most wide
ranging one is the Atlantic States
Fisheries Management Commission
(ASFMC). This is made up of repre
sentatives from 14 coastal states and
federal bureaucracies such as NOAA.
This commission impacts 23 fisheries
such as scallops, weakfish, shrimp,
striped bass, blue fin tuna, red drum
and sharks. Another is the South At
lantic Fisheries Management Council
(SAFMC). This commission regulates
fisheries that occur from Cape Hat-
teras and south and out 200 miles.
Under these regulatory umbrellas,
our own Division of Marine Fisheries
operates. Our DMF can actually have
regulations that are more stringent
than commission regulations, but not
less stringent.
How does one make sense out
of all this? It is not easy. If you have
Internet access, perhaps the rainy
day approach is best. The ASFM web
page is www.asmfc.org. The SAFMC
web page is www.safmc.net, and the
NCDMF web page is www.ncfisher-
ies.net. There is a lot of informa
tion on each of these web pages. I
am going to limit my guidance to
the NCDMF web page. It will open
to a home page, running in three
columns. The left column has the
current recreational size, creel and
season information and a listing of
artificial reefs. The center column has
lots of information headings, but to
keep this halfway digestible, note that
three titles up from the bottom is a
summary of FMP’s. Click on this list,
and then click on an individual FMP
for the species you are researching.
In the right column, there are also
many options. Last months “Fishing”
article tried to decipher what kind
of “hits” might still be coming in our
creel limits, sizes and seasons for the
species for which we commonly fish.
The regulators will have jurisdiction
over our inshore and ocean fishing.
Although no future projections are
offered, there is information that is
indicative. For this article, if you look
at the seventh title from the bottom,
you will see “Stock Status Reports.”
Scroll to this title and left chck on
it. A columnar display opens with
the name of the species on the left,
a fish silhouette in one of the five
middle columns and a “Comments”
column. The five middle columns are
titled “Viable,” “Recovering,” “Con
cern,” “Depleted” and “Unknown.”
There is a link to a page defining the
five column titles. If you left chck
on the name of the species in the
left column you are taken to a sum
mary status report of the species.
This is a very interesting report and
gives, among other things, a 10-year
average of commercial landings in
pounds and dollars, the number of
award citations and the status of the
FMP. This even has a nice picture of
the fish. This report is really a sum
mary of the FMP for the species.
If you opt to read through one or
more of the FMP’s, you will find vari
ous studies, tables and graphs that
give a better sense of the hard science
used to generate the regulations we
are having to learn to live by. To see
these FMP documents, go to the
NCDMF home page middle column,
scrolhng or pointing at the FMP
(Continued on page 10)
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