August 6, 2019 — Seagrass is more plentiful within the North Carolina Outer Banks than along any other eastern state’s coast except Florida, but it is losing ground.
State biologists are surveying seagrasses that prefer the saltier waters of the Pamlico Sound and waterways southward for the third time in a dozen years. A report is expected to come out early next year.
Spotters are seeing areas where seagrass is not present in places where it should be, said Jud Kenworthy, a retired NOAA marine scientist who is a volunteer team leader on the seagrass survey for the Albemarle Pamlico National Estuary Partnership.
Surveys in 2007 and in 2012 indicate the estuaries support about 150,000 acres of seagrass, but have declined at a rate of about a half percent to 1.5 percent per year, Kenworthy said.