Saving Seafood

Fisherman fell overboard 37 miles from NC shore — and his boat drove off without him

July 6, 2021 — A fisherman who fell overboard trolling off the North Carolina coast was saved Monday after his boat drove off without him, officials said.

The captainless vessel nearly plowed into his rescuers — a father and son fishing near Wrightsville Beach, said Captain Ryan Saporito of Sea Tow. The fisherman, meanwhile, was treading water 37 miles from shore for almost an hour before they found him.

“He got extremely lucky here these guys were fishing where they were,” Saporito said.

The man, who was not identified, was fishing by himself on a 23-foot Parker boat when he fell off, Saporito told McClatchy News. He was trolling at the time, meaning the boat was moving forward and dragging lures behind it.

Saporito said the man slipped on the boat’s deck, tripped and fell overboard. He wasn’t wearing his engine cut-off switch (ECOS) lanyard, also known as a “kill switch,” which would have prevented the boat from driving off without him.

Read the full story at The News & Observer

Federal bureau, US Army Corps of Engineers look to support more offshore wind energy

June 23, 2021 — Two federal agencies are partnering to pursue more offshore wind energy along the Atlantic Coast, though much of North Carolina’s coastline doesn’t seem to be involved.

Meanwhile, state officials are pursuing similar plans.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued an announcement June 14 they’ve entered into an agreement to support planning and reviewing renewable energy projects on the outer continental shelf. The partnership is made in an effort to pursue President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14008, which commits to creating 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.

In an action mirroring President Biden’s executive order, Gov. Roy Cooper issued June 9 his own executive order, E.O. 218. According to a press release from his office, the order highlights “North Carolina’s commitment to offshore wind power.”

“Offshore wind power will help North Carolina create jobs and generate economic development while helping us transition to a clean energy economy,” Gov. Cooper said in the release. “North Carolina’s national leadership in clean energy and manufacturing, plus our highly trained workforce, create a strong business environment for offshore wind supply chain and manufacturing companies.”

BOEM public information officer Stephen Boutwell said in an email June 15 to the News-Times the bureau is “in the planning stages for potentially issuing additional wind leases offshore (of) North and South Carolina.”

Read the full story at the Carteret County News-Times

North Carolina adjusts flounder seasons to rebuild stocks

June 23, 2021 — The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries announced Wednesday it has adjusted the recreational and commercial flounder seasons for 2021 to ensure a sustainable fishery.

In 2019 the Division of Marine Fisheries recommended, and the Marine Fisheries Commission approved, substantial harvest reductions in the flounder fishery to rebuild the southern flounder stock. The season adjustments are necessary to meet that goal, the division said.

The recreational flounder season will open Sept. 1 and close Sept. 14 in internal and ocean waters of North Carolina. The minimum size limit will remain at 15 inches total length, and the creel limit will remain at four fish per person per day during the open recreational season.

Since all species of flounder are managed under the same recreational regulations, the recreational season applies to all recreational flounder fishing.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online

NORTH CAROLINA: Coastal Resources Commission looks at permitting floating structures for aquaculture

June 21, 2021 — Shellfish growers may be able to use floating structures at their lease sites in the near future, once state officials create regulations for it.

The N.C. Coastal Resources Commission held its regular meeting Wednesday at the Beaufort Hotel on Lennoxville Road. This was the first in-person meeting the commission has had since February 2020 due the coronavirus pandemic.

During the meeting, the commission directed the N.C. Division of Coastal Management to look into drafting regulations for permitting floating structures for shellfish aquaculture leases. DCM Director Braxton Davis said he wants to come back to the CRC with drafted permitting rules at the commission’s September meeting.

Existing CRC regulations don’t allow floating structures on shellfish aquaculture leases, and any such structures found have to be removed.

N.C. Coastal Federation assistant director of policy Ana Zivanovic-Nenadovic gave a presentation to the commission on the importance of floating structures to shellfish aquaculture Wednesday.

“The current need for the industry is to have some kind of floating structure on the lease,” she said. “Most of the states that have large (aquaculture) industries allow these structures.”

Read the full story at the Carteret County News-Times

Farmed shellfish creates half of economic impact of shellfish in North Carolina

June 10, 2021 — Cultivated, or farmed, shellfish now represent over half of the total economic impact of shellfish in the state.

New research has found that North Carolina’s shellfish industry provides over $27 million in economic impact and 532 jobs in the state. Until 2016, the industry’s economic impact primarily came from the harvest of wild oysters and clams.

In 2019, farmed oysters contributed over $14 million to state gross domestic product and 271 jobs, according to research published by Eric Edwards of NC State University’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

The findings stem from a collaborative project led by North Carolina Sea Grant in partnership with researchers at NC State University, Appalachian State University, Duke University and the University of North Carolina Wilmington and funded by the N.C. Commercial Fishing Resource Fund Grant Program.

“The goal of the research was to better understand the economic impact of North Carolina’s seafood industry,” says Jane Harrison, North Carolina Sea Grant’s coastal economics specialist and a project lead. “The shellfish results indicate the strength of the growing aquaculture sector.”

Read the full story at The Coastland Times

NC Gov. Cooper Sets Ambitious Goal For Offshore Wind Energy By 2040

June 10, 2021 — Gov. Roy Cooper has set ambitious goals for wind energy off the North Carolina coast over the next two decades as part of his plan to fight climate change by shifting away from fossil fuels.

The governor on Wednesday signed Executive Order No. 218, which calls for developing 2.8 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030 and 8 gigawatts by 2040. If that happens, the governor said that would power 2.3 million homes by 2040.

The order also calls for a new task force, “NC TOWERS, for “N.C. Taskforce for Offshore Wind Economic Resource Strategies.” Its job would be to advise offshore wind projects.

The state currently has no offshore wind farms and only one major land-based wind project — the 208-megawatt wind farm Avangrid Renewables built for Amazon in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties in eastern North Carolina. Avangrid is also studying a potential 200-square-mile wind farm 27 miles off Kitty Hawk, on the Outer Banks.

Wednesday’s order is designed to help speed up Cooper’s 2018 Executive Order No. 80. That order and the governor’s Clean Energy Plan called for developing wind energy as one way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and shift the state to what the governor calls a “clean energy economy.”

Read the full story at KFAE

NORTH CAROLINA: Fisheries service to hold webinars, workshops on turtle excluder devices

June 9, 2021 — Local skimmer trawl fishermen and others have several opportunities to learn more about putting turtle excluder devices, or TEDs, on their trawls.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service is offering several webinars to assist skimmer trawl fishermen with TED installation. Fishing gear specialists with the NMFS Southeast Fishery Science Center’s gear monitoring team will host question-and-answer webinar sessions and virtual workshops summarizing upcoming skimmer trawl TED requirements and assist participants with program information and compliance.

These webinars and workshops will be held at 10 a.m. on select Tuesdays and Fridays. The case sensitive password for all these webinars is “noaa.” An audio conference call will also be available at the webinar times at 415-527-5035. The event number for each webinar is the access code for each audio conference call.

Each webinar will be recorded.

Read the full story at the Carteret County News-Times

NORTH CAROLINA: ‘It’s fraud’: DNA tests reveal seafood mislabeled in Triangle markets

May 27, 2021 — Fresh and local are huge selling points for seafood, but when you buy fish or shellfish from local grocery stores and markets, are you getting what you’re paying for?

“People want Carolina shrimp. It’s that simple,” said Doug Cross, co-owner of Pamlico Packing, which gets locally caught seafood to North Carolina plates.

“Our shrimp, most of them, are caught in a more brackish environment in the Pamlico Sound, which is one of the best places in the world to grow a shrimp,” Cross said.

But Cross’ competition is not just coming from other coastal fishermen. With demand for fresh and local, many sellers are cutting corners by getting their seafood from other countries. And in some cases, high-demand fish is being mislabeled.

In the past two years, two North Carolina-based crab meat companies admitted in federal court they were labeling crab as a U.S. product when a lot of the meat was foreign.

Read the full story at WRAL

NC to limit flounder seasons again, leaving fishermen in disbelief

May 21, 2021 — North Carolina is trying to slow down flounder fishing on the coast, but leaders of the effort say some fishermen still aren’t doing their part.

To protect the population, the state’s planning on tightening the net on flounder fishing even further.

“There’s definitely been an impact, that’s for sure,” Sound-N-Sea Morehead charter captain Matt Paylor said. “It’s got some people in a whirlwind.”

In fall 2019, North Carolina’s Division of Marine Fisheries said flounder were being over fished, and that anglers needed to be allowed to catch only about a quarter the amount of fish they were catching to get the population back to a healthy size.

Read the full story at WRAL

NORTH CAROLINA: Commercial fishermen say they can’t stay afloat under biased regulations

May 13, 2021 — The commercial fishing industry is a lifeline for many coastal communities in North Carolina.

According to a study from NC State University, the fishing industry provides nearly $300 million to the state’s economy and employs more than 5,000 people.

However, many commercial fishermen feel like they’ve been playing defense for a decade, fighting for their livelihood.

“It’s a hard day to fight when you get up and you know you’re fighting for your survival every day, and you’re regulated to the point where you can barely make it,” said Doug Cross.

Cross runs Pamlico Packing Company with his brother. He grew up around the docks in Vandemere and started helping out at the family business when he was 13.

“I’ve seen years where the boats were a liability, and I’ve seen years where the boats were a blessing,” said Cross.

Read the full story at WNCT