Saving Seafood

Commercial, charter communities in North Carolina are answering the call for help

September 21, 2018 — The commercial fishing and charter boat communities in the north east part of the state are answering the call for help from hard-hit communities south of Dare, particularly Down East Carteret County.

On the weekend, some who tried to get into the area with their trailered boats made it as far as New Bern, where they were put to work making water rescues. Others took in heavy equipment to help clean up and clear roads.

Tuesday, led by Hatteras Island fisherman Paul Rosell, a group made the long trek to Davis in Down East Carteret County. They delivered supplies and took along equipment to help secure homes.

On Wednesday, Britton Shackleford, commercial fisherman, charter boat operator and Wicked Tuna Outer Banks personality, put out a call for others to join him to go Carteret County that day to clear trees around the homes of Capt. Sonny Davis and his family members. Davis is a member of North Carolina United Watermen.

More efforts are being planned and drop-off locations have been established from Elizabeth City to Hatteras Island. Please DON’T send clothes — the hard-hit areas aren’t staffed to hand them out and available space needs to be used for food and other supplies.

Read the full story at The Outer Banks Voice

 

Hurricane raises questions about rebuilding along North Carolina’s coast

September 21, 2018 — When Florence was raging last Friday on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the hurricane tore a 40-foot (12-meter) chunk from a fishing pier that juts into the ocean at the state’s most popular tourist destination.

The privately owned Rodanthe pier has already undergone half a million dollars in renovation in seven years and the owners started a new round of repairs this week.

“The maintenance and upkeep on a wooden fishing pier is tremendous,” said co-owner Terry Plumblee. “We get the brunt of the rough water here.”

Scientists have warned such rebuilding efforts are futile as sea levels rise and storms chew away the coast line but protests from developers and the tourism industry have led North Carolina to pass laws that disregard the predictions.

The Outer Banks, a string of narrow barrier islands where Rodanthe is situated, may have been spared the worst of Florence, which flooded roads, smashed homes and killed at least 36 people across the eastern seaboard.

Read the full story at Reuters

IMPORTANT: NC & GA/SC Revised Cobia PID Hearing Dates

September 17, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

North Carolina’s Public Hearing on Atlantic Cobia PID, which was scheduled for September 18th at 6 PM in Manteo, has been rescheduled for September 26th at 6 PM at the same location (Dare County Commissioners Office, 954 Marshall Collins Drive, Room 168, Manteo, NC). The Georgia/South Carolina Public Hearing on Atlantic Cobia PID, which was scheduled for September 12th at 6 PM, will be held on September 24th at 6 PM at the same location (National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, 175 Bourne Avenue, Pooler, GA).

Effects of Florence on Long Island fishing are a mixed bag

September 14, 2018 — Fearsome Hurricane Florence may have missed Long Island by several hundred miles, but her high seas have stretched across the Atlantic Coast from Florida to New England. Following strong offshore winds that saw ocean swells topping 12 feet last weekend, the influence of the massive hurricane — plus the possibility of more heavy seas from two additional named storms now swirling in the Atlantic — have anglers wondering how the fishing might shape-up once the waves finally lay down.

Big storms can have a huge influence on Long Island’s fishing prospects, especially during September when many local species like fluke, sea bass, porgies and weakfish begin transitioning from the bays and coastlines out to deeper ocean waters. Some anglers believe a heavy storm at this time of year can shut the action down for days or even weeks; others think just the opposite, feeling that rough seas and dropping temperatures may spark the start of a fall bite. Depending on the year and the storm, it’s likely both camps are right some of the time.

“I’m worried that heavy seas and all the rain we’ve already had might slow the action for a few days,” said Capt. Joey Leggio of the Oceanside charter boat Frankie James. “At the least, all this foul weather will push fish further offshore. Anglers have been catching brown sharks and even cobia — a southern visitor that loves warm water — in as little as 20 feet of ocean water. I’m pretty sure those fish will move deeper. Fluke might make an adjustment, too. The biggest ones are already in 60- to 80-foot depths. They might just keep on going. You just never know.”

Read the full story at Newsday

NORTH CAROLINA: Fishing communities bend into the storm

September 14, 2018 — “We have everything secured — as much as we could do,” said fisheries writer Susan West on Thursday morning from the Outer Banks village of Buxton, N.C., as Hurricane Florence bore down on the Carolina coast. “We have plywood shutters up on most of our windows. The boat has extra lines on it.”

Her husband, Rob, fishes their 34-foot gillnetter, the Lucy B., which is docked at Jeffery’s Seafood on the sound side of nearby Hatteras Village.

“Most of the folks that we know — the fishermen — all stayed here,” West said. “Hatteras Village is still a thriving commercial fishing center.”

Farther south in Merritt, just outside of Oriental and closer to the storm’s projected path, NF contributor Maureen Donald reported similar circumstances.

“A very unscientific survey of residents deciding to ride out the storm proved to be commercial fishing families. Reasons for staying inevitably center on being near their boats and equipment. At nearby Oriental, it’s evident that two of the largest commercial fishing operations have made preparations — the docks are lined with trawlers securely tied to the docks.”

She added that the fleet has been busy for days leading up to the storm’s arrival.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NOAA Funds Projects to Reduce Bycatch With Engineering

September 4, 2018 — A group of organizations is getting more than $2 million in grants to use engineering to try to reduce bycatch in fisheries.

Bycatch is the term for when fish and other animals are accidentally caught with gear that was seeking a different species. Bycatch poses problems for rare species of dolphins, turtles, sharks and other animals.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is awarding more than $2.3 million to 14 projects as part of its 2018 Bycatch Reduction Engineering Program.

One of the recipients is Duke University, which will test the applicability of sensory-based bycatch reduction technology. Duke’s project seeks to reduce sea turtle bycatch in North Carolina.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

Our Coast’s History: NC’s Oyster War

August 29, 2018 — Late January 1891, the steamer Vesper, rented from the Wilmington Steamship Co. and mounted with a well-used howitzer and caisson borrowed from the state of Virginia, left Elizabeth City with militiamen of the Pasquotank Rifles. Their mission: To enforce “An Act to Promote and Protect the Oyster Interests of the State” that had been passed barely a week earlier.

After three years of growing tension between North Carolina oystermen and vessels drifting down from Chesapeake Bay to harvest oysters in Pamlico and Roanoke sounds, North Carolina’s legislature had acted, creating a list of draconian restrictions on the harvest that prohibited dredging and allowed only in-state residents to gather oysters.

Tasked with telling the oyster poachers — mostly from Maryland — of the new law, as conflicts go, the North Carolina oyster war wasn’t much of a war, the rhetoric far outstripping the action.

“As she (the Vesper) proceeds on the return trip if any dredgers are found continuing to ravish the oyster beds they will be arrested, even if their boats have to be blown out of the water and their crews killed,” the Wilmington Weekly Star wrote.

In the end, the Vesper made one arrest, with other boats heeding the warning and leaving North Carolina waters.

Although short-lived and bloodless, what occurred on the water was but a part of an intersection of changing priorities in northeastern North Carolina.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online 

 

The blood of horseshoe crabs is important for its medical benefits. Now they’ll get a relaxing place to recover.

August 20, 2018 — William Hall, a retired marine scientist, is scheduled for cataract surgery soon, and a horseshoe crab will play a crucial role in the surgery’s success.

The blood of horseshoe crabs contains an agent that clots when exposed to gram-negative bacteria, such as E. coli and salmonella. Since the 1980s, the blood has been used to detect toxins in medical procedures, including inoculations, intravenous drugs and even rabies shots for pets.

Decades ago, scientists conducted less accurate toxin tests on rabbits. If the injected rabbit got a fever, the sample was contaminated.

Now, they use the blood of hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs. But blood extraction stresses the creatures. Fishermen under contract collect them from their habitat and haul them to a lab, where technicians extract their blood before they are carried back to the ocean and released. About 15 percent die from the process.

Thanks in part to funding from North Carolina Sea Grant, a Greensboro-based life sciences company plans to establish natural salt-water ponds where horseshoe crabs can rest and eat after having their blood extracted.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

Why sharks are thriving near the North Carolina coast

August 15, 2018 — Climate change is negatively impacting our relationship with our state’s coast. Our famous beaches are taking a heavy hit from rising sea levels. Meanwhile, loss of property, loss of natural coastal habitats, and changes to our fisheries threaten our economic well being.

Sea levels are rising especially fast in the southeast, bringing potentially devastating losses to property values and real estate. Hurricane damage and chronic flooding due to rising seas a huge concerns. By 2045, more than 15,000 homes are at risk of being flooded on more than 26 days every year.

In addition to the property losses, so much sand is being eroded from beaches at Nag’s Head that the state spent $36 million to pump new sand from the sea floor onto beaches in 2014 and will spend $48 million in 2018. This brings total state spending on beach nourishment since 1990 to $640 million. The rising costs of beach nourishment impacts our state’s coastal tourism economy, which brought in an estimated $3 billion in 2013 according to N.C. Department of Commerce. With sea level predicted to rise at least 1 foot and by as many as 8 feet by 2100, there is much at risk.

Sea-level rise is not our only problem. Pamlico Sound had changed from an occasional feeding ground to a shark nursery as a direct result of climate change. Pamlico Sound already had many of the features of a good bull shark nursery: ocean access, proper salinity, and plenty of prey fish. The only missing piece was warmer water temperature. While adult bull sharks have been occasionally encountered in the sound for a long time, the sudden appearance and consistent presence of juveniles after 2011 signaled a change that has been correlated with rising water temperatures, particularly during late spring and early summer when bull sharks give birth.

Read the full story at The News & Observer

Federal court rules against Atlantic Coast Pipeline

August 7, 2018 –The Atlantic Coast Pipeline faces problems similar to the now-halted Mountain Valley Pipeline.

On Monday, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the National Park Service’s permit for the ACP.

As a result of this decision, if ACP construction continues along its 600-mile-route from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina, it will be operating without two crucial federal permits.

The ACP is proposed to go through Highland, Augusta and Nelson counties.

“This is an example of what happens when dangerous projects are pushed through based on politics rather than science,” said D.J. Gerken, attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center. “This pipeline project was flawed from the start and Dominion and Duke’s pressure tactics to avoid laws that protect our public lands, water and wildlife are now coming to light.”

The SELC is calling on the Federal Regulatory Commission to stop all construction along the ACP route due to the decision from the 4th Circuit Court and the recent stop work order placed on the MVP.

“It’s time to pause and take a look at this project for what it is an unnecessary pipeline that’s being pushed through to benefit Dominion Energy, not the people of Virginia and North Carolina,” said Greg Buppert, senior attorney for the SELC.

According to a statement from the Sierra Club, Virginians will pay $2 billion more for the ACP than they would if the utility used existing pipelines.

Read the full story at WSLS