Saving Seafood

NORTH CAROLINA: Several counties respond to Dare County proposal for coastal fisheries coalition

July 15, 2025 — In the wake of Dare County Commissioners Chair Bob Woodard’s proposal to form a coastal coalition to protect the commercial fishing industry, several counties have already responded positively.

Woodard made the proposal in a July 3 letter to the board chairs of 19 NC coastal counties, after a measure to ban shrimp trawling in the state’s inland waters and within a half mile of the Atlantic shoreline was killed by the NC House on June 25. He also suggested that the coalition kick off with a meeting in August at “a central location.”

According to Dare County Public Information Director Dorothy Hester, as of Friday, July 11, Dare County had heard from five counties. Two of the counties, Craven and Currituck, have appointed a representative to the coalition. Three others, Brunswick, Carteret and Tyrell, are placing it on their boards’ next meeting agendas for action.

Read the full article at Outer Banks Voice

NORTH CAROLINA: NC shrimp trawling ban bill saga ends

July 11, 2025 — House Bill 442, introduced in April, aimed to extend the recreational flounder fishing season to six weeks and establish a year-round red snapper season with catch limits.

The bill passed the House in May with bipartisan support and was sent to the Senate. After that, the bill’s focus shifted dramatically when the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Energy, and Environment met June 17.

During that meeting, Sen. David Craven (R-Randolph) proposed a committee substitute with a ban on shrimp trawling in all inshore waters, including sounds, estuaries, rivers and within a half mile of the Atlantic shoreline. The change, which would go into effect Dec.1, proposed making it a Class A1 misdemeanor for violating the bill’s ban.

Environmental groups like the North Carolina Wildlife Federation and North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission supported the change, citing rates of bycatch of juvenile fish and various marine habitat damage.

The shrimp industry, including the North Carolina Fisheries Association and Southern Shrimp Alliance, opposed the ban. They argued that 70-80% of shrimp come from inshore waters, and many small boats can’t operate offshore. Also cited were existing regulations addressing environmental concerns, like weekend trawling bans and nursery areas closed since 1978.

The Senate’s changes were added without prior notice to House sponsors or the shrimp industry. The Senate passed the amended bill June 19 with a 39-4 vote.

Coastal area Sens. Tom Lazzara (R-Onslow) and Norman Sanderson (R-Pamlico) voted against it in committee. Lazzara and Sen. Bobby Hanig (R-Currituck), who also opposed the change, were not present at the Senate vote sending the measure to the House.

Read the full article at North State Journal

NORTH CAROLINA: Proposed coalition to N.C. coastal counties seeks to protect fishing industry

July 11, 2025 — At the end of June, a bill that would have banned shrimp trawling on the North Carolina coast was killed in the North Carolina House of Representatives.

Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Woodard is now proposing a coastal community coalition.

This proposal comes with future fights on the issue in mind and amplifying the voices of coastal communities under one umbrella.

“We’re trying to save an industry that’s been around since mankind began,” said Woodard.

Read the full article at WTKR

NORTH CAROLINA: Lawmakers shoot down ban on controversial fishing practice after community outcry: ‘Without warning or consultation’

July 7, 2025 –North Carolina lawmakers kept a ban on shrimp trawling from advancing in the General Assembly.

What’s happening?

The House of Representatives on June 25 declined to hear Bill 442, which would have prohibited the practice within a half-mile of the coast, the Island Free Press reported. The legislation had passed the Senate but was derided by shrimpers and the fishing industry.

Commercial anglers said 75% of their shrimp is harvested in the area that would have become off-limits, WUNC noted. In 2023, the state issued 270 licenses to shrimpers, who caught 6.5 million pounds of the crustaceans. The haul was valued at $14.1 million.

Bill 442 would have lengthened the southern flounder and red snapper seasons, but an amendment added the ban, making it untenable for those who make their living in the field.

Read the full story at The Cool Down

NORTH CAROLINA: What must NC do to protect fishing in coastal waters? See what study says.

July 3, 2o25 — During a recent, failed push to ban shrimp trawling in North Carolina sounds, an opponent mentioned a study commissioned by the General Assembly expected to shed light on the state’s coastal and marine fisheries.

The report is now released and doesn’t take a stand on whether a trawling ban is needed to save fish populations or underwater habitats in this state’s coastal waters.

But it does bring several findings and recommendations related to fisheries in state-managed coastal waters, including the Pamlico, Currituck, Bogue and Core sounds. Among the most significant:

  • North Carolina’s fisheries are “intensely managed,” and the level of management equals or exceeds intensity in other states throughout the Southeast, the Mid-Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.

  • Despite that, North Carolina “continues to exhibit challenges” in protecting and enhancing coastal fisheries, including its southern flounder stock.

  • North Carolina protects more than 80,000 acres of primary maritime nurseries in shallow estuaries by restricting commercial fishing activity and nearby development. Yet “there is no clear evidence” that this increases populations of juvenile fish and crustaceans as much as anticipated. And further study is needed to identify contributing environmental factors.

  • State fisheries and coastal habitats are “under pressure from fishing, coastal and inland development, climate variability, and other human activities.”

  • Fisheries’ health should be assessed by an ecosystem-based management approach, with quantitative “indicators” tracking pressures on estuary and coastal waters regularly measured and analyzed.

  • The state should create a “Science and Statistical Committee” to set species-specific fish harvest control rules, one that makes use of new technologies and data collection to help guide its limits.

Read the full article at Yahoo! News

NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina’s landmark study offers insight into fisheries management, days after ‘Shrimpgate’

July 2, 2025 — In a sweeping three-year study mandated by the North Carolina General Assembly, the North Carolina Collaboratory has released its long-anticipated findings on the state’s coastal and marine fisheries.

While the report was intended to be a neutral and science-driven evaluation of fish populations and habitats, it has also become a flashpoint in the debate over House Bill 442, a controversial legislative proposal that aimed to restrict shrimp trawling in state waters.

The study’s results, particularly concerning shrimp and southern flounder, offer new data on fishery health but stop short of endorsing any policy like the now-dormant HB 442.

Multiple comments by legislators in both chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly (NCGA), as well as statements circulating in the media, suggested the Senate was aware of the contents of this report and this advance knowledge drove actions to amend the legislation to include a shrimp trawling ban prior to the report’s release,” stated Collaboratory Executive Director Dr. Jeffrey Warren in a letter attached to the study.

“These statements remain untrue and undermine the credibility of this multi-year research study carried out by nine researchers across four UNC System campuses.”

Read the full article at Island Free Press

NORTH CAROLINA: What they’re saying on scuttled “Shrimpgate” trawling ban proposal

June 30, 2025 — Following the surprise introduction of legislation that would ban shrimp trawling in nearly all of North Carolina’s coastal waters, a host of groups and individuals have weighed in on the “Shrimpgate” proposal running aground.

They have included expressions of relief the ban will not be moving forward in the General Assembly, while one group believed to have pushed the proposal denied the accusations and another left their involvement unclear.

The state Senate passed House Bill 442 on June 20 that would make it a misdemeanor to operate a shrimp trawl in the sounds and up to one-half mile off the Atlantic coastline, which was tacked on to a bill requiring state regulators open flounder and red snapper seasons through a four-year pilot program.

That bill was then sent back to the state House for concurrence, since they passed the legislation before it was amended.

Hundreds of commercial watermen and women, restaurateurs, local political leaders, and others, from Currituck to Calabash and elsewhere across the state, walked the halls of the Legislative Building earlier this week to meet with members of the General Assembly and voice their opposition.

Outside, dozens of tractor trailers and box trucks that would normally be on the road hauling seafood up-and-down the East Coast were cruising the streets of Downtown Raleigh on Tuesday adorned with banners supporting North Carolina’s seafood industry and decrying the ban proposal.

Just steps away from the main entrance to the Legislative Building, an impromptu curbside seafood market with giant insulated boxes filled with thousands of pounds of fresh, brown shrimp on ice that was caught just a few days ago by the same trawlers that would be put out of business by the legislation.

Read the full article at Island Free Press

NORTH CAROLINA: A proposed inland trawling ban left NC shrimpers boiling hot. Now what happens?

June 27, 2025 — As if it already wasn’t hot enough in the Tar Heel State in late June, a small crustacean that’s long been a popular food staple at the N.C. coast has succeeded in sending temperatures surging at the N.C. General Assembly in Raleigh.

But this has nothing to do with a polite squabble over the best way to cook shrimp. This, shrimpers and their supporters say, is about protecting their livelihoods.

About 70% of the state’s shrimp catch is caught in waters that would have been declared off limits under House Bill 442, according to NC Catch, an advocacy group for the state’s commercial fishing industry. According to statistics from the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, more than 9 million pounds of shrimp annually were caught by commercial shrimpers in the four years pre-Covid, worth upward of $20 million a year.

But supporters of the ban also say the proposed bill is about survival, in this case protecting the future of the state’s fisheries, many of which are overfished and struggling.

State Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, has said continuing to allow trawling in inland waters is detrimental to the state’s fish populations that use the shallow near-shore waters as spawning and nursery areas and, in the long run, damaging to the state’s commercial fishing industry, noting that North Carolina is the only state along the East or Gulf coasts that allows the practice.

Read the full article at Star News Online

NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina House lawmakers kill proposed ban on inshore shrimp trawling

June 27, 2025 — Lawmakers in the North Carolina House of Representatives have effectively killed a ban on inshore shrimp trawling, a proposal that was hailed by conservation groups but widely rejected by shrimpers and seafood providers in the state.

“When a coordinated assault was launched to kill North Carolina’s shrimp industry with junk science, hundreds of dedicated fishermen and supporting businesses walked the halls of the state capital, meeting legislators face to face and sharing the truth about their livelihood,” Southern Shrimp Alliance Chief Executive John Williams said in a release about the news. “We are immensely grateful to the NC House of Representatives for doing the right thing.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NORTH CAROLINA: Shrimp trawling ban defeated in House Republican caucus

June 26, 2025 — Shrimpers spoke, and the Republican caucus of the North Carolina House of Representatives listened.

Legislation potentially fatal to the coastal industry, its leaders said, will rest in the Rules Committee of the lower chamber. A Wednesday afternoon session was delayed more than 90 minutes awaiting the decision that rejected the Senate’s insertion of a shrimp trawling ban within a half mile of the shoreline.

The North Carolina Fishers Association, at 3:30 Wednesday afternoon, posted in all caps to its social media, “HB442 trawl ban is dead!”

Sen. Phil Berger, the Rockingham County Republican and president pro tempore, stood by his chamber’s move. Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, pushed for a deeper dive on the decision. Steve Troxler, sixth term Republican state agriculture commissioner, on Monday respectfully confirmed opposition to the trawling ban.

Read the full article at The Center Square