Saving Seafood

North Carolina fishermen getting $11.6 million in Hurricane Florence relief funding

April 8, 2019 — North Carolina commercial fishermen will soon get a second round of checks as part of $11.6 million being distributed by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Marine Fisheries under the Hurricane Florence Commercial Fishing Assistance Program.

For this round, 1,002 checks totaling $7,231,500 are going to fishermen to help compensate for October and November harvest reductions due to Hurricane Florence.

“When the storm hit, coastal communities suffered tremendous damage to homes, businesses, schools and their entire economy,” Governor Cooper said. “Helping the commercial fishing industry recover is critical for the people and places who rely on it for their livelihood, and these funds are an important boost.”

The program is designed to help make up for losses to the state’s nearly billion-dollar commercial fishing industry due to the storm and is part of a package of Hurricane Florence relief efforts Governor Cooper signed into law on December 3, 2018.

The first round of checks to fisherman went out in February and included 678 checks totaling more than $3.2 million to help compensate fishermen for reductions in the September harvest.

Distribution of the money is based on reported commercial fishing landings in September, October, and November 2018 as compared to the same months in 2015, 2016, 2017. The state collects records of all marine fish and shellfish sold at North Carolina docks.

Read the full story at WNCT

Mark Your Calendars – Upcoming Meetings and Public Hearing/Scoping

April 4, 2019 — The following was released by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council will hold several meetings and public hearing/scoping meetings in the coming weeks on topics affecting federal fisheries management off the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and the east coast of Florida. Fishermen and others interested in offshore fisheries are encouraged to attend the meetings and provide their viewpoints and comments on a variety of fisheries including snapper grouper, dolphin wahoo, and mackerel.

All meetings are open to the public and available via webinar. Meeting materials, including agendas/overviews, public comment forms, briefing book materials, and presentations, are available from the Council’s website at: http://safmc.net/safmc-meetings/ as noted below. The Council encourages the public to use public comment forms available from the website. Use of the public comment forms allows Council members access to comments as they are provided, as well as access to members of the public.

Scientific and Statistical Committee and Socio-Economic Panel Meeting

April 8-11, 2019

Town and Country Inn

Charleston, SC

The Council’s SSC and SEP will meet next week to discuss fisheries issues and provide recommendations for Council consideration. The SSC and its Socio-Economic Panel assists the Council in the development, collection, evaluation, and peer review of information relevant to fishery management plans and amendments. The meeting week begins with a meeting of the SEP on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning and continues with the SSC. Agenda highlights:

* Risk Tolerance and the ABC Control Rule Amendment

* Recent revisions to recreational harvest estimates and calibrations

* Ecopath Modeling, tools, and evaluation

* South Atlantic Research and Monitoring Prioritization

Access meeting materials, webinar registration, comment forms and more: http://safmc.net/safmc-meetings/scientific-and-statistical-committee-meetings/.

NOAA maintains East Coast bluefish catch rules for this year

April 4, 2019 — Federal fishing regulators say catch quotas and regulations for Atlantic bluefish will be about the same this year as they were in 2018.

Bluefish is an oily fish that is popular with some seafood fans on the East Coast, where it is fished commercially. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says rules for this year are only experiencing minor adjustments, in part because no states exceeded their quota allocations last year.

Fishermen will be able to harvest more than 7.7 million pounds of bluefish from Maine to Florida this year. The states with the most quota are North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia, Florida and Massachusetts.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the San Francisco Chronicle

North Carolina bill wants to ban wind power near the coast. ‘You do need to make choices.’

March 29, 2019 — North Carolina could permanently ban big wind-power projects from the most energy intensive parts of the state’s Atlantic coast, but a state senator said Wednesday the move is necessary to prevent hindering military training flights.

Legislation introduced by Republican Sen. Harry Brown would prohibit building, expanding or operating sky-scraping wind turbines within about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the coast. The bill would apply to the area that stretches from the Virginia border to south of the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base.

“It would have a major impact to the areas of North Carolina with potential for wind energy development,” said Brent Summerville, who teaches about wind energy in Appalachian State University’s sustainable technology program.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The News & Observer

Fish 2.0 to host free workshop for seafood entrepreneurs and investors

March 27, 2019 — Aquaculture entrepreneurs and researchers seeking capital for ventures and technologies supporting sustainable seafood or the marine environment are encouraged to join a Fish 2.0 workshop at the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Marine Campus on 23-24 April.

The event is part of the Fish 2.0 initiative and established businesses from the US South Atlantic coast (Maryland, DC, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and the Atlantic coast of Florida) involved in seafood supply chains, climate resilience technologies, or seafood production, including aquaculture, wild harvesting or trade are eligible to apply at no cost.

“If you know of technologies being commercialised at universities or ventures getting started in your state, please forward this message. We want to help those entrepreneurs meet investors that can fund these important ventures,” say Fish 2.0’s organisers.

Fish 2.0 is a year-long global programme that connects entrepreneurs with business-building resources and a network of investors and innovators that are shaping the future of fisheries, aquaculture, and the marine ecosystem.

Read the full story at The Fish Site

Federal regulators scramble as SC fish start to range north for cooler seas

March 25, 2019 — Shrimp boats from North Carolina pulled up to the McClellanville dock last week, loaded down with catch.

They had been trawling unrestricted ocean waters along the North Carolina-Virginia state line — in other words, hauling in shrimp that spawned in the Chesapeake Bay.

Until a few years ago that was unheard of: The bay just didn’t produce shrimp. It’s too far north.

But fish species are shifting their range as seas warm — four times faster than land species, according to a recent study.

The concerns are for a lot more than shrimp. It’s deep-water finfish as well as surface roamers, species like wahoo, snapper, grouper and cobia. Those are among the most sought after game and seafood fish, and the rules for all of them are under review.

As the waters warm this spring, the near-shore shrimping grounds will open. More of the half-million licensed recreational anglers in South Carolina will crank up boat motors and head out. Commercial boats are out there already. While the pressure on species from overfishing is a long-recognized and long-regulated issue, now there is a new one: How long will this fish even be there?

Anxiety is starting to churn in fishing communities over what will happen to their livelihoods or hobbies. The value to South Carolina of its rich shrimp and finfish waters has been estimated at $44 billion per year for both recreational and commercial fishing combined.

Read the full story at The Post and Courier

North Carolina fisheries commission forces a gillnet ban

March 19, 2019 — North Carolina’s commercial fishermen are bracing for a fight over actions taken by the state’s Marine Fisheries Commissioners that forced a ban on the use of all gillnets in the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers.

The controversial action was a follow-up to a February meeting where a no-possession limit of striped bass was put into place, which is essentially a closed-season for both commercial and recreational fishermen in Central Southern Management Area of the state. At the same meeting, the commission requested that Department of Marine Fisheries Director Steve Murphey issue an additional proclamation restricting the use of all gillnets in the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers. Murphey chose not to issue the proclamation.

In a March 4 letter to the commission, Murphey wrote that he carefully considered the issue but concluded that scientific data does not support the management measure.

“While I respect the concerns of both the public and the MFC, after careful consideration I have concluded that such a measure is not supported by the scientific data that support gill nets as the primary or even the most significant source of discard mortality,” he wrote.

Gill nets are not the primary or even the most significant source of discard mortality in the Central Southern Management Area striped bass fishery, according to the department.

“This letter and Supplement A acknowledge discards in both the recreational and commercial industry, but it also points out that gill net restrictions already in place have resulted in significant reductions in striped bass discards and that recreational discards are increasing in recent years,” said Murphey.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Council Approves Chub Mackerel Management Measures

March 11, 2019 — The following was published by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

At their meeting in Virginia Beach, VA last week, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council approved a suite of management measures for Atlantic chub mackerel (Scomber colias) in federal waters from Maine through North Carolina. If approved by the Secretary of Commerce, the Chub Mackerel Amendment will add chub mackerel to the Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish Fishery Management Plan.

The management measures approved by the Council include an annual total allowable landings limit of 4.50 million pounds, a 40,000 pound commercial possession limit when 90% of this limit is projected to be landed, and a 10,000 pound possession limit when 100% of this limit is projected to be landed. In addition, commercial fishermen will be required to have one of the existing federal commercial permits for longfin squid, Illex squid, Atlantic mackerel, or butterfish in order to retain any amounts of chub mackerel in federal waters from Maine through North Carolina. Fishermen who do not already have one of these permits can obtain one of the existing open access permits. Similarly, for-hire vessels will be required to have the mackerel, squid, butterfish party/charter permit in order to retain chub mackerel.

The Council developed these management measures to help ensure orderly growth and sustainability of the emerging chub mackerel fishery which recently developed in the mid-Atlantic and southern New England. In addition, Council management will help elevate the priority of data collection for this data-limited species. The Council has already taken steps to address an important data limitation by funding a study on the importance of chub mackerel in the diets of tunas, marlins, and other predators in the mid-Atlantic.

Questions? See http://www.mafmc.org/actions/chub-mackerel-amendment or contact Julia Beaty, Fishery Management Specialist, jbeaty@mafmc.org, (302)526-5250.

NORTH CAROLINA: New experiment raises possibility of fresh N.C. soft-shell crabs year-round

March 11, 2019 — An experiment to farm soft-shell crabs in North Carolina ponds could augment declining wild stocks and lead to having plenty of the delicacy fresh almost year round.

Scientists from North Carolina and Mississippi will work together in a three-year venture to raise blue crabs and harvest them for the lucrative soft-shell market.

Fresh soft crabs flood the market typically in May and June, at the height of molting season.

A $339,239 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will fund the project, managed by Sea Grant programs in both states. The University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Lab will lead the effort and lend expertise.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

NOAA Fisheries Announces 2019 Bluefish Specifications

March 11, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Today we filed a final rule approving and implementing the 2019 specifications for the Atlantic bluefish fishery recommended by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council in cooperation with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

The final 2019 specifications are fundamentally the same as 2018, with only minor adjustments to the final commercial quota and recreational harvest limit to account for most recent full year of recreational catch data (2017), and a 4.0 million lb of quota transferred from the recreational to the commercial sector rather than 3.5 million lb in 2018.

Table 1 (below) provides the commercial fishery state allocations for 2019 based on the final 2019 coast-wide commercial quota, and the allocated percentages defined in the Bluefish Fishery Management Plan. No states exceeded their state-allocated quota in 2018; therefore, no accountability measures need to be implemented for the 2019 fishing year.

Table 1. 2019 Bluefish State Commercial Quota Allocations.

State Percent Share Quota Allocation (lb)
Maine 0.67 51,538
New Hampshire 0.41 31,956
Massachusetts 6.72 517,828
Rhode Island 6.81 524,874
Connecticut 1.27 97,626
New York 10.39 800,645
New Jersey 14.82 1,142,264
Delaware 1.88 144,801
Maryland 3.00 231,426
Virginia 11.88 915,857
North Carolina 32.06 2,471,746
South Carolina 0.04 2,714
Georgia 0.01 732
Florida 10.06 775,558
Total 100 7,709,565

For more details please read the rule as filed in the Federal Register and our permit holder bulletin.

Questions?
Fishermen: Contact Cynthia Ferrio, Sustainable Fisheries Division, 978-281-9180
Media: Contact Jennifer Goebel, Regional Office, 978-281-9175