June 30, 2025 — Following the surprise introduction of legislation that would ban shrimp trawling in nearly all of North Carolina’s coastal waters, a host of groups and individuals have weighed in on the “Shrimpgate” proposal running aground.
They have included expressions of relief the ban will not be moving forward in the General Assembly, while one group believed to have pushed the proposal denied the accusations and another left their involvement unclear.
The state Senate passed House Bill 442 on June 20 that would make it a misdemeanor to operate a shrimp trawl in the sounds and up to one-half mile off the Atlantic coastline, which was tacked on to a bill requiring state regulators open flounder and red snapper seasons through a four-year pilot program.
That bill was then sent back to the state House for concurrence, since they passed the legislation before it was amended.
Hundreds of commercial watermen and women, restaurateurs, local political leaders, and others, from Currituck to Calabash and elsewhere across the state, walked the halls of the Legislative Building earlier this week to meet with members of the General Assembly and voice their opposition.
Outside, dozens of tractor trailers and box trucks that would normally be on the road hauling seafood up-and-down the East Coast were cruising the streets of Downtown Raleigh on Tuesday adorned with banners supporting North Carolina’s seafood industry and decrying the ban proposal.
Just steps away from the main entrance to the Legislative Building, an impromptu curbside seafood market with giant insulated boxes filled with thousands of pounds of fresh, brown shrimp on ice that was caught just a few days ago by the same trawlers that would be put out of business by the legislation.