June 27, 2025 — As if it already wasn’t hot enough in the Tar Heel State in late June, a small crustacean that’s long been a popular food staple at the N.C. coast has succeeded in sending temperatures surging at the N.C. General Assembly in Raleigh.
But this has nothing to do with a polite squabble over the best way to cook shrimp. This, shrimpers and their supporters say, is about protecting their livelihoods.
About 70% of the state’s shrimp catch is caught in waters that would have been declared off limits under House Bill 442, according to NC Catch, an advocacy group for the state’s commercial fishing industry. According to statistics from the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, more than 9 million pounds of shrimp annually were caught by commercial shrimpers in the four years pre-Covid, worth upward of $20 million a year.
But supporters of the ban also say the proposed bill is about survival, in this case protecting the future of the state’s fisheries, many of which are overfished and struggling.
State Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, has said continuing to allow trawling in inland waters is detrimental to the state’s fish populations that use the shallow near-shore waters as spawning and nursery areas and, in the long run, damaging to the state’s commercial fishing industry, noting that North Carolina is the only state along the East or Gulf coasts that allows the practice.