June 20, 2025 — Trawlers wouldn’t be allowed to net shrimp in North Carolina’s inland waters or within a half-mile of the coast under a proposal passed by the North Carolina Senate on Wednesday. Critics say the measure, if approved, would destroy the state’s shrimping industry.
“Shrimp Fraud” Allegations Are Rocking the Restaurant World. We Talked to the Company Blowing the Whistle.
June 20, 2025 — Last week, the Texas-based firm SeaD Consulting released the results from a study that shook the culinary scene in Charleston, South Carolina. A team of undercover testers had paid visits to randomly selected seafood restaurants around the city and used on-the-spot genetic testing to determine whether the shrimp came from local waters. The results were shocking in a town that prides itself on abundant fresh catch: Forty out of the forty-four restaurants it tested, the company reported, served imported, farm-raised shrimp.
Charleston isn’t the first market the company has scrutinized since ramping up its testing efforts last August. SeaD has also visited New Orleans, Savannah, Tampa–St. Petersburg, and Wilmington, North Carolina, among others. Of those cities, New Orleans fared best, with only 13 percent of restaurants misrepresenting their shrimp (largely due to more stringent food labeling laws in Louisiana, according to SeaD). Savannah and Wilmington each tallied 77 percent inauthenticity. In Tampa, just two restaurants of forty-five were serving Gulf shrimp, the firm reported.
Since the Charleston bombshell dropped, the plot has thickened. Local shrimpers have come forward to vouch for clients who buy from them, since SeaD didn’t reveal the names of the forty establishments that served imported shrimp. And the S.C. Shrimpers Association has announced a lawsuit against those unidentified restaurants (referring to them as “John Doe Restaurants” in the complaint) in which it accused them of false advertising and in violation of South Carolina’s Unfair Trade Practices Act.
With the industry still reeling, we chatted with SeaD founder Dave Willams and his daughter, chief operations officer Erin Williams, to find out exactly how the team conducted its testing, if the Charleston results surprised them, and what changes they hope to see in the shrimping and restaurant industry. And, yes, they know where they’re headed next, but they’re not saying.
NORTH CAROLINA: Restaurateur rips NC bill HB 442: ‘Slitting the throats of the commercial fishing industry
June 20, 2025 — Ryan Speckman is the co-owner of Locals Seaford and told ABC11 that 99% of his product comes from North Carolina waters. Only salmon is brought in from Maine. He has made it a mission to highlight the work of local fishers, and his No. 1 seller year-round is shrimp.
Speckman said supply and prices are in jeopardy because of House Bill 442.
It’s a serious issue for Speckman, who said the shrimping industry itself could be destroyed.
“You’re basically slitting the throats of the commercial fishing industry,” said Speckman. “We have to decide do we want good food or do we want to rely on other countries to get the food.”
NORTH CAROLINA: New plan would pay shrimp trawlers who lose access to inland waters
June 19, 2025 — North Carolina lawmakers have a plan to pay commercial fishermen impacted by proposed restrictions on shrimp trawling in the state’s coastal sounds.
The Senate gave its final approval to the trawling ban Thursday afternoon. The proposal now goes to the House of Representatives.
Earlier Thursday, the Senate unveiled its plan to “provide annual transition payments to eligible holders of commercial fishing licenses with verifiable lands of shrimp” since 2023.
The payments would last until Oct. 1, 2028. The amount of the payment would depend on the value of eligible shrimp trip tickets submitted by the license holder, plus $180.
The bill would also increase the cost of a Standard Commercial Fishing License from $400 to $580. It would increase the license fee for non-residents to at least $2,000. The fee for a Retired Commercial Fishing License would increase from $200 to $290. The bill includes fee increases for commercial fishing vessel registrations, shellfish licenses, new fish dealers, land or sell licenses and temporary fishing licenses.
Supporters of the ban say it is necessary to help other fish stocks and that it would align North Carolina with other East Coast states that ban trawling inland. Opponents of the ban say it will destroy the shrimp industry in the state and hurt the entire commercial fishing industry.
NORTH CAROLINA: NC Senate votes to ban shrimp trawling in sounds, angering some coastal Republicans
June 19, 2025 — The North Carolina Senate approved a bill Thursday that bans commercial shrimp trawling in inshore waters, including sounds.
Sen. Bobby Hanig, a Republican who represents multiple coastal counties, passionately opposed the ban.
“We need to save our heritage. We need to save our fisheries,” he said during a floor debate on Wednesday.
Hanig unsuccessfully proposed multiple amendments, including one to remove the ban from a bill where it was introduced by amendment just one day before. He was absent from the second of two required votes on the bill Thursday, as were seven other senators.
That original bill expanded recreational fishing seasons for flounder and red snapper.
Only four senators, all Republicans representing coastal areas, voted against the bill Wednesday: Hanig, Norman Sanderson, Bob Brinson and Michael Lazzara. With Hanig and Lazzara absent for the second vote on Thursday, the vote was 39-2, with Brinson and Sanderson opposed. There was no debate. Senate Democrats told reporters after the bill passed on Thursday that environmental concerns were the main reason for supporting the measure. The bill now goes back to the House.
NORTH CAROLINA: NC considers ban on inshore shrimp trawling to protect estuaries. Opponents call it ‘disgraceful.’
June 18, 2025 — A ban on inshore shrimp trawling is moving quickly toward a vote in the North Carolina Senate.
On Tuesday morning, the provision was inserted into House Bill 442, which deals with recreational fishing of flounder and red snapper. It’s scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon.
It would outlaw shrimp trawling except in Atlantic Ocean waters at least a half-mile offshore, matching regulations in Virginia and South Carolina.
“We’re the only state on the East Coast that allows that,” Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, told reporters late Tuesday, saying the issue has “needed attention for a long time.”
Commercial shrimpers say their industry would be decimated.
“Shrimping is the lifeblood of a lot of counties,” commercial fisherman Thomas Newman said during the Senate Rules Committee meeting Tuesday. “You’re going to cut off 75% of the shrimp we produce.”
The state awarded 270 commercial shrimp licenses in 2023. Those shrimpers hauled in over 6.5 million pounds of shrimp, worth an estimated $14.1 million, according to Division of Marine Fisheries statistics.
Around half of those shrimp were landed in the Pamlico Sound, the same report says, and that’s been the case since 1994.
NORTH CAROLINA: Fishermen fight Senate’s push to restrict shrimp trawling
June 18, 2025 — North Carolina’s shrimp industry faces a potential crackdown, as state senators pushed forward a bill on June 17 with a controversial amendment banning shrimp trawling within a half mile of the shoreline and inshore waters.
House Bill 442 passed the House in May, aiming to expand recreational flounder and red snapper fishing. However, during a Tuesday morning meeting, legislators in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Energy, and Environment added the last-minute shrimp amendment, prohibiting trawling in coastal fishing waters and within one-half mile of the shoreline, effective Dec. 1, 2025.
Sen. David Craven, R-Randolph, who introduced the amendment, said an estimated 4 pounds of “bycatch,” meaning species that were inadvertently brought in, were caught per pound of shrimp.
“Which is a lot of other species of fish that are getting caught in the net, potentially dying,” said Craven. “This has been an issue for quite some time, and I think it’s time this body addressed it.”
Supporters of the amendment argued it aligns North Carolina with South Carolina and Virginia, reducing bycatch and protecting estuarine habitats.
The bill proposes a recreational fishing season for flounder of not less than six weeks between May 15 and Nov. 15 annually, with a limit of one fish per person, per day. Similarly, a year-round red snapper season with a limit of two fish per person, per day, and a 20-inch size limit in state waters.
Read the full article at The Carolina Journal
NORTH CAROLINA: Dewey Hemilright advocates for US commercial fishing fleet
June 17, 2025 — Dewey Hemilright has spent more than 30 years on the water as a commercial fisherman. Along the way he has become an outspoken, sometimes harsh critic of how commercial fishing is regulated in the United States.
He is forceful in expressing his opinions, his language sometimes colorful, but the knowledge is deep, insightful and earned through a lifetime in the commercial fishing industry.
“I started in the fish house, unloading the boat. That’s the lowest tier on the totem pole,” he recalled.
He moved up the totem pole to working in a fish house, “packing, laboring long hours, nights, winter, cold, all that other stuff.” And when he turned 21, he headed to Ocean City, Maryland, to go fishing.
“My first two weeks, I lost 15 pounds from being seasick and throwing up. But the first trip we went fishing, we caught a big bluefin tuna, and I thought it was the most unreal thing. And from then on, I’ve been going my own route,” he said, adding, “but I never thought when I got started into it, that (the industry) would end up where it is today.”
He’s a longliner, fishing from his 42-foot-long boat, the F/V Tarbaby. The name, he explained, came about because it’s a smaller version of the 48-foot Tarheel, a charter vessel owned by John Bayliss and built by Ricky Scarborough.
He doesn’t get out to sea much at all any more. The combination of his advocacy, bad knees and years spent on the water have taken their toll, although the Tarbaby still heads out from Wanchese with a father-and-son crew he’s worked with for years.
NOAA-funded research finds ecological, economic benefits from oyster reef restoration
June 6, 2025 — A new suite of research has found efforts to restore oyster reefs on the U.S. East Coast has knock-on effects benefitting the economies of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.
Two sets of research, one by the North Carolina Coastal Federation and another by Morgan State University’s Patuxent Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory in Maryland, U.S.A, found restoring oyster reefs would have direct economic benefits for the surrounding economies. The restoration projects use local quarries to supply rock to serve as the base of restoration projects, and once established the oyster reefs benefit the surrounding ecosystem which in turn boosts both commercial and recreational fishing.
NC Division of Marine Fisheries urges fishermen to complete license, permit renewals early
April 24, 2025 — The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Marine Fisheries began renewing commercial fishing, seafood dealer and for-hire licenses and permits on April 15, and the division is asking fishermen go ahead and get this business done in April or May.
Those who renew in these months may find reduced wait times, as opposed to those who wait until late June, noted a DMF news release.
Another way to avoid long lines is to renew by mail or drop-box or schedule an appointment for April or May. Those with appointments will be given priority over walk-ins.
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