September 6, 2013 — The N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission on Thursday denied a New Bern man’s petition to close North Carolina’s sounds and rivers to trawlers.
Several hundred commercial fishermen attended the Aug. 5 meeting in Raleigh to oppose the measure; that’s in addition to a crowd of nearly 700 that gathered at a July meeting in New Bern.
The hubbub over the measure raises the question: How did one man’s petition get this far?
“Anyone can request a petition be heard by the Marine Fisheries Commission,” said Commissioner Chuck Laughridge.
That right was granted by the Fisheries Reform Act of 1997, he said.
And Laughridge think it’s a good policy.
“These fisheries resources belong to everybody, so everybody has the right to participate in the management of them,” he said.
But others suggested the debate was a waste of time.
“It blows my mind, quite frankly, that we can put this much resources” into a single petition, said Elaine Crittenton, a member of the Carteret County Board of Commissioners. “It is unreasonable to expect these fishermen to come and defend their right to earn a living.”
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