June 24, 2025 — When traveling east on U.S. 64 – the main highway that connects central N.C. to the Outer Banks – drivers will encounter a billboard encouraging visitors to ask for local seafood.
Part of the “Got To Be NC” marketing campaign, an initiative on behalf of the state’s Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services to promote N.C. agricultural goods, the billboard includes a link to https://nc-seafood.org/, which further touts the state’s fish and shellfish, the finest available “anywhere in the world.”
Even the state’s corresponding Got to Be NC website understands the singularity of local North Carolina seafood, with a featured image of fresh shrimp next to a search for restaurants that have local ingredients on the menu.
There’s a real possibility, however, that in the not-so-distant future, one of the Outer Banks’ most heralded homegrown products will no longer be available to residents and summertime visitors.
“The best shrimp on the East Coast are Pamlico Browns,” said Woody Joyner, President of North Carolina Watermen United (NCWU). “If you can’t shrimp on the sound, and you have to go out on the ocean, you aren’t going to get Pamlico Browns.”
Parc Greene, owner of Risky Business Seafood in Hatteras, estimates that 60% of his business is North Carolina shrimp alone. “I will always sell local shrimp – I will never sell any foreign shrimp,” he said. “And if the ban goes through, there will be no fresh shrimp until the fall, when the boats can go into the ocean. So, no tourist will be able to enjoy N.C. shrimp during the summer season – it won’t be a thing anymore.”
Tilman Gray, who has owned and operated Avon Seafood for 35 years, says that a shrimp trawling ban would cost his business around $200,000 in gross income every year.