Saving Seafood

NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina joins East Coast states’ effort to establish regional fisheries mitigation for offshore wind development

May 26, 2023 — Gov. Roy Cooper has just announced that North Carolina has joined other East Coast states involved with a joint project to support fisheries mitigation in the development of sustainable and responsible deployment of offshore wind.

“It is important that we work to meet our state’s offshore wind energy goals while still protecting our marine fishery industry,” said Governor Cooper. “We are committed to collaborating with other states in this effort to make sure we achieve both goals.”

According to a press release, “North Carolina is working with Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and Delaware.”

The Special Initiative on Offshore Wind is focused on establishing a framework to compensate commercial and for-hire fishermen, if faced with economic impact due to offshore wind development.

Read the full story at WECT

NORTH CAROLINA: Offshore wind is ‘core’ to clean energy plans in N.C., Duke Energy VP says

March 6, 2023 — A Duke Energy official called offshore wind a “core part” of the company’s goals to reduce carbon emissions.

A bipartisan 2021 law requires North Carolina’s energy producers to reduce carbon emissions 70% by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2050. Duke Energy, North Carolina’s largest energy producer, and the state Utilities Commission continue to refine plans to hit the carbon reduction goals.

“We have 9 gigawatts of coal, and we need to replace that,” said Venu Ghanta, a vice president with Duke Energy. Three of the four plans the company submitted to the state to hit carbon reduction goals include offshore wind. “Offshore wind seems to be a core part of getting to 70% by 2030.”

Read the full article at Spectrum News

New research aims to keep sharks away from commercial fishing gear

February 21, 2023 — North Carolina Sea Grant’s Sara Mirabilio is continuing collaborative research to keep sharks away from commercial fishing gear. A multi-campus team is partnering with the private sector to pilot test a device that deters the predators.

“Several sharks are overfished or are experiencing overfishing on the U.S. East Coast,” says Mirabilio, a fisheries extension specialist. “Populations of scalloped hammerhead, dusky, sandbar, and blacknose sharks all could benefit from an effective deterrent from commercial fishing gear.”

Most often, sharks are caught unintentionally — as “bycatch” — when fishers are targeting other fish, she explains.

Mirabilio and colleagues, including Richard Brill, an affiliated scholar at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, are further testing a state-of-the-art electronic device that could help conserve species of sharks whose populations fishery managers are trying to rebuild. Brill says that unlike other fish, sharks possess an electrosensory system that equips them to detect close-range movements of predators or prey.

“The objective of the project is to keep the sharks away from the fishing gear, not the fishing gear away from the sharks,” says Brill. “To an approaching shark, even a weak electrical impulse can be disorientating or physically uncomfortable.” The device produces a small electric field around a baited hook

Read the full article at Island Free Press

NORTH CAROLINA: The Striped Mullet Supplement

February 21, 2023 — The following was released by the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission:

The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC) is meeting this week to vote on a supplement to the current Striped Mullet Fisheries Management Plan (FMP) which would close mullet harvest during the middle of the roe season. 

At the November MFC meeting staff at the Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) presented Supplement A to the Striped Mullet FMP. In Supplement A the DMF recommends a 20-33% reduction in mullet landings by closing the harvest season in late October or early November through December 31st for at least one year. The preferred option of a November 7th to December 31st closure was selected by the MFC at this meeting.

In December and January DMF held several public meetings giving people the opportunity to ask questions and give public comment on the end of season closure. Overwhelming public comment during these meetings suggests that mullet are not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. Definitely not to the extent that a 20-33% reduction in harvest is needed! 

 In fact, mullet abundance this past season seemed to be at a level not seen in decades! Many mullets left the sounds before the roe season and large numbers of mullets are still up the rivers right now. Furthermore, there is still plenty of time for the DMF to collect more data before this decision has to be made, if a closure is even necessary at all.

 It is not too late to comment and tell the MFC why reducing the Striped Mullet season is not necessary. 

 Come out and be seen and heard!

 Written comments are accepted until today (February 20th) at 4pm at this link:

https://deq.nc.gov/nc-marine-fisheries-commission-comment-form

 You can also comment in person at the Doubletree Hotel in New Bern, NC Wednesday night at 6:00pm or Thursday morning at 9:00am at the meeting this week. 

 (Important to note, no online comments will be accepted during the live meeting comment session.)

 The discussion and vote on the Striped Mullet Supplement will begin at approximately 2:30pm on Thursday (Feb. 23rd). Listen live on YouTube at this link once the meeting starts:

 https://youtube.com/live/QNrjWEW11z8?feature=share

 From my personal experience, the meeting streams much better on the YouTube app versus watching it from your web browser. You can download the YouTube app in the App Store or Google Play.

 As always, contact me with any questions or if you need help accessing any of the meeting materials.

 Thomas Newman 

Fisheries Liaison 

Thomasnewman@ncfish.org

Whale deaths in NC and along the East Coast have officials searching for answers

January 25, 2023 — On Jan. 7, a critically endangered North Atlantic right whale calf was found dead, wedged under a pier in Morehead City. In the previous month, three humpback whales washed up on beaches between Beaufort and the northern Outer Banks.

The four North Carolina deaths are part of at least 14 whales that have washed up on East Coast beaches since Dec. 1.

Federal officials, scientists and conservation groups have said there could be multiple factors contributing to the rise in whale strandings, including an increase in the population of the Western North Atlantic humpback whales.

But one idea that’s gained traction online and among some coastal residents and politicians is that huge offshore wind farms planned off many East Coast states, including North Carolina, could be harming the marine mammals. After nine whale deaths off their state in less than two months, several New Jersey GOP lawmakers have openly questioned if wind farms planned for the Garden State’s near-coastal waters are impacting the animals, with Fox News host Tucker Carlson calling the projects “the DDT of our times.”

Read the full article at Citizen Times

NORTH CAROLINA: Coastal federation’s lost fishing gear recovery program starts Monday

January 6, 2023 — This month, with the help of dozens of commercial fishermen and women, the N.C. Coastal Federation, based in Ocean, will begin efforts to find and remove potentially dangerous lost fishing gear. This is the ninth year the federation has held the annual Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project. Throughout the month watermen will scour parts of the northern and central coast looking to find and remove lost crab pots.

Every year, crab pots and other fishing gear are lost in our sounds in a variety of ways. Lost gear can get hung up or drift into channels, creating serious hazards to boaters, wildlife, and other fishermen. Since 2014, the federation has led the Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project in an effort to remove lost crab pots from North Carolina sounds.

With the help of various partners, commercial fishermen and women are hired to collect the pots during the annual closure of internal coastal waters to all crab, eel, fish, and shrimp pots, Jan. 1-31 north of the Highway 58 bridge to Emerald Isle.

Read the full article at Carolina Coast Online

North Carolina: Draft wind energy areas off NC coast may be downsized

December 6, 2022 — Proposed central East Coast offshore wind energy areas, including two off the northern North Carolina coast, may be scaled back in size by the time they are finalized early next year.

Sea scallop fishing, a NASA danger zone, a proposed shipping safety fairway, and marine habitat could further trim eight draft wind energy areas, or WEAs, the federal government is eyeing offshore from Delaware south to Cape Hatteras.

These areas encompass about 1.7 million acres, a little less than half of the original 3.9 million acres the Interior Department identified as potential wind energy areas.

Last month, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, opened a 30-day public comment period on the draft WEAs, including one area located about 28 miles offshore of southern Virginia and northern North Carolina and one about 50 miles from those coasts.

BOEM hosted two virtual meetings last week, giving members of the fishing community and environmental organizations an opportunity to ask questions about and comment on the draft WEAs.

Among some of the concerns raised during the meetings were potential impacts to Atlantic sea scallop fishing off Delaware’s coast and recreational fishing vessel businesses, possible effects on deep sea coral, and impacts to shorebirds and endangered right whales.

NORTH CAROLINA: Will North Carolina get offshore wind farms? Right now it’s up to one state commission

November 21, 2022 — There’s a swath of ocean just over the horizon off Oak Island, in the southeast corner of North Carolina, that one day could be home to hundreds of towering offshore wind turbines. The project, federal regulators say, could produce as much power as Duke Energy’s nearby Brunswick Nuclear plant.

Duke Energy won the rights to build a wind farm in one of two leases off the coast of Brunswick County and Myrtle Beach, called the Carolina Long Bay area. The company said that lease is not part of the sale it announced recently of its renewable energy business.

This is all part of a plan, passed last year by the General Assembly, to reduce carbon emissions from power companies by 70% by 2030 and make power generation carbon neutral by 2050.

But how that works, and what role offshore wind plays in North Carolina’s clean energy mix, is now in the hands of the state Utilities Commission. The commission, which oversees North Carolina power companies, has been taking comments and proposals for months.

“We know the absolute earliest we’ve seen anyone projecting offshore wind is in the 2030 timeframe,” said Katherine Kollins, a wind industry advocate who leads the Southeast Wind Coalition. “That still is a lot of lead time, more than I would like.”

Read the full article at Spectrum News

NORTH CAROLINA: Susan West, 73, remembered as longtime voice of NC fishers

November 15, 2022 — Susan West, a longtime advocate for the Hatteras Island fishing community and a writer who helped foster improved communications and respect between regulators and fishermen, died last week at age 73.

“She made sure that Hatteras and those small fishing communities were never left out of the conversation,” recalled Karen Willis Amspacher, director of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island. “She made sure Hatteras was at the table.”

Amspacher, speaking Monday to Coastal Review, fondly remembered being able to pick up the phone to talk to her friend at 4:30 a.m., and engage in long conversations.

“She was the person I would call when I needed clarity and rational thought,” she said. “She understood people and she understood her community.”

West passed away unexpectedly Thursday at Outer Banks Hospital from complications from cancer treatment, said North Carolina Sea Grant Fisheries Extension Specialist Sara Mirabilio.

“She was a dear friend, personally and professionally,” she said, adding that besides working on fisheries issues together, they had a close bond as breast cancer survivors. West has been a part of Mirabilio’s life since she started working at Sea Grant in 2003, she said.

N.C. decides not to appeal to Supreme Court for review in lawsuit over marine fisheries regulations

October 14, 2022 — Glenn Skinner, executive director of the N.C. Fisheries Association, a trade and lobbying group for North Carolina commercial fishermen, said Thursday he was “surprised and a little confused” by the state’s decision this week not to appeal to the state Supreme Court to reverse a September Appeals Court ruling that allows the state to be sued for alleged failure to protect North Carolina’s fisheries.

“We don’t what we’re going to do right now,” Skinner said. “We’re sort of sitting here scratching our heads.”

The N.C. Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in September that the state chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, a recreational fishermen’s group that bills itself as an advocate for “sound management of public trust marine and estuarine resources,” could sue the state, rejecting the state’s claim of sovereign immunity.

Read the full article at Carteret County News-Times