Saving Seafood

Frustrated fishermen meet with new North Carolina fisheries director

August 11, 2016 — MANTEO, N.C. — About 50 exasperated, even angry, commercial fishermen gathered Monday to meet the new director of the North Carolina agency that governs how these watermen make a living.

They came to the Dare County offices from towns east and west of the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, ranging from Hatteras Village to Elizabeth City. They came to voice frustrations and ask questions about what they believe are unfair and arbitrary regulations that shrink their livelihood.

Southern flounder harvest restrictions and sea turtle conservation efforts were sore points.

Sea turtles are best with “taters and onions,” said Sharon Peele Kennedy, a member of the Board of Directors for NC Catch, a group that advocates for local fishing and seafood.

This fight is old for fishermen on the Outer Banks, but their opponent has a new face: Braxton Davis, who in April became director of the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries and the Division of Coastal Management after the last director resigned.

In his new job, the watermen demanded he at least listen, tell the truth and be willing to make what they call common-sense changes in the rules that prevent them from setting their nets.

For the most part, the men spoke in thick coastal accents, each carried a three-day growth of beard, and had arms and faces weathered and brown. A few women in the audience were equally adamant about the cause. The language was occasionally salty.

But they came with data, documents and experience to buttress their arguments.

“We are the science,” a veteran waterman said. “We’re your biggest environmentalists.”

Read the full story at the Virginian-Pilot

VIRGINIA: Cobia hearings will play a role in future regulations

August 10, 2016 — The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council is holding public hearings this week and the input from anglers could play a role in the future management of cobia.

The SAFMC is proposing regulations that will further reduce next year’s allowable catch. The council forced closures in federal waters this year to reduce the catch, leaving North Carolina and Virginia to adopt tighter regulations that include a reduced season in state waters.

Opponents of increased closures and tighter regulations are asking that anglers attend as many of this week’s meetings as possible.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot 

North Carolina Marine Fisheries Director to meet with area fishermen

July 20, 2016 — Dr. Braxton Davis, the newly appointed director of the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Division, will be on the Outer Banks on Monday, Aug. 8 for an open meeting with interested recreational and commercial fishermen from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at the Dare County Administration Building in Manteo.

North Carolina Watermen United invited Davis with the intention of introducing the new director to some of the fishermen from this part of the state.

Read the full story at the Outer Banks Sentinel

Federal Fishery Advisory Panel Seats Open to Applicants

July 13, 2016 — The following was released by the South Atlantic Fishery Managment Council:

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council is currently soliciting applicants for open advisory panel seats. Working at the grass roots level, advisory panel members provide information and guidance in the development and implementation of federal fishery management plans. The Council has eleven advisory panels composed of individuals who are engaged in the harvest of managed species, or are knowledgeable and interested in the conservation and management of the fishery or managed species. Members include recreational and commercial fishermen, seafood dealers and processors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), scientists, and concerned citizens.

Advisory panel members are appointed by the Council and serve for a three-year period, based on the frequency of meetings. As those appointments expire, members currently serving on the AP may reapply for their positions. These seats also become open to new applicants. Members may serve for three consecutive terms before reaching their term limit. AP members generally meet no more than once or twice each year and are compensated for travel and per diem expenses for all meetings. Members must have access to a working email account and the Internet in order to receive meeting materials and correspondence relative to their service on the advisory panel.

See the full release at the South Atlantic Fishery Managment Council 

CDC: Highest suicide rates found among fishermen, farmers, foresters

July 11, 2016 — Greg Marley has lived on the coast of Maine for 35 years, and in that time the licensed clinical social worker has seen a lot of sad things, including the death by suicide of too many of his hard-working neighbors.

“This is a field I’ve worked in for a long time,” Marley, the clinical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Maine, said recently. “I know fishermen, I know foresters, I certainly know people in the construction industry who have died by suicide.”

That’s why a recent report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the suicide rates among people working in different occupationswasn’t surprising to the social worker, who’s part of the Maine Suicide Prevention Program. In the CDC’s weekly morbidity and mortality report on July 1, the agency found that persons working in the farming, fishing and forestry fields had the highest rate of suicide overall, with 84.5 deaths by suicide among 100,000 people. The second highest suicide rate was found among people who work in the field of construction and extraction, with 53.3 deaths by suicide per 100,000 people.

In sharp contrast, the lowest suicide rate was found in the education, training and library occupational group, with 7.5 deaths by suicide per 100,000 people — more than a tenfold decrease from the farming, fishing and forestry group.

“The study is interesting, and it’s useful,” Marley said. “But for me, heavily steeped in this field, I found little of surprise. It does tell me that, hey, maybe we need to do better or more active outreach in those areas.”

The CDC’s suicide rate report used data provided by 17 states in 2012. Maine wasn’t one of those states, because the state didn’t start participating in the CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System until 2014. Still, Maine has some commonalities with some of the states that were included in the report, Marley said, especially Alaska, Oregon, Colorado, Wisconsin and North Carolina. Those are all places with a large rural population and where many farmers, fishermen or lumbermen work. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Maine is the most rural state.

Suicide is an important topic in Maine, where the suicide rate of people ages 10 and older is higher than the overall rate in the nation — 17.7 suicide deaths per 100,000 people in Maine compared to 14.6 deaths per 100,000 nationwide. Suicide also is the second leading cause of death among Mainers ages 15 to 34, and the fourth leading cause of death among Mainers ages 35 to 54. Men in Maine are four times more likely to die by suicide than women are, with firearms the most common suicide method used by men.

For the Pine Tree State, which has a rich and storied tradition of people — mostly men — working on the farm, on fishing boats and in the forests, the new study may highlight some old problems.

“I think there are a number of factors operating here,” Emily Haight, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Maine, said. “Farmers, fishermen and foresters — they are largely male-dominated professions, and we know that males are more likely to complete suicide. Farmers, fishermen and foresters also probably have more access to firearms. And my other guess is that we’re dealing with factors related to isolation.”

Among those factors is the way many parts of rural Maine are underserved, with respect to mental health care, she said, and the stigma about seeking help that still exists in many places.

“Suicide is a very striking and disturbing occurrence,” Haight said. “We still regard it as not common. But as researchers we want to be very aware of risk factors.”

According to Marley, additional factors that likely play a role in the higher suicide rate among farmers, fishermen and those in the forestry industry include substance abuse and higher accident risks in those fields.

Agriculture, for instance, is one of the nation’s most dangerous industries, with the injury rate in 2011 over 40 percent higher than the rate for all workers, according to the United States Department of Labor. The fatality rate for agricultural workers was seven times higher than the fatality rate for all workers in private industry.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Economics professor awarded grant for socioeconomic study of Atlantic menhaden

July 5, 2016 — BOONE, NC — Dr. John Whitehead, professor and chair of Appalachian State University’s Department of Economics, has been awarded $95,303 by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) to conduct a socioeconomic study of Atlantic menhaden commercial fisheries.

Whitehead will co-lead the project with Dr. Jane Harrison from North Carolina Sea Grant. The project is based on case studies within the industry intended to characterize the Atlantic menhaden commercial fisheries, including bait and reduction sectors and the fishing communities they support.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Atlantic menhaden constitute the largest landings by volume along the Atlantic Coast – that is, the amount of fish harvested from the sea and brought to the land. Menhaden rank second in the United States for landings behind only pollock on the west coast of Alaska.

“Menhaden stock is healthier than ever,” Whitehead said, “and the ASMFC is wrestling with how to allocate quotas across the Atlantic U.S.”

Read the full story at Appalachian State University

North Carolina spending, researching to get more tasty, earth friendly oysters

July 5, 2016 — MANTEO, N.C. — North Carolina will spend more than $1.6 million improving the habitats of oysters living in its waters.

The money will go toward further restoring oyster sanctuaries in the Pamlico and Albemarle sounds in hopes the species will rebound to levels not seen in decades.

“The General Assembly’s new budget takes big steps toward making coastal North Carolina the Napa Valley of oysters,” Todd Miller, founder and executive director of the North Carolina Coastal Federation, said in a news release.

The state’s 2015 wild oyster harvest of 119,000 pounds is nearly 20,000 pounds less than in 2014 but still much higher than in the 1990s and 1980s when diseases decimated the population.

The total population was 800,000 pounds in 1889, when scientists first began measuring the catch. It fell to 200,000 pounds by 1960.

Read the full story at the Virginian-Pilot

North Carolina Budget Marks $1.4 Million for Oyster Work

June 29, 2016 — Coastal conservationists and shellfish growers are cheering new investments in the state’s oyster industry included in the state budget compromise.

The $22.34 billion spending plan announced Monday includes $1.03 million in one-time funding to build oyster sanctuaries in Pamlico Sound. Also, a $300,000, non-recurring, shellfish rehabilitation fund will go to build new oyster reefs all along the coast. The budget also includes $149,000, recurring, for two new positions at the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries to accelerate shellfish industry growth and increase shellfish production and recycling.

“The General Assembly’s new budget takes big steps toward making coastal North Carolina the Napa Valley of oysters,” said Todd Miller, executive director of the North Carolina Coastal Federation. “This funding will help implement the state’s blueprint for restoring the oyster industry and help attract more federal money to restore our oyster beds.”

The budget also provides $100,000 to clean up abandoned crab pots in state waters.

Advocates say boosting the shellfish industry can benefit coastal communities by providing work for fishermen and marine contractors and improving water quality.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online

For North Carolina seafood festivals, there’s a small catch

June 27, 2016 — WANCHESE, North Carolina —Dewey Hemilright has spent more than half his life in North Carolina’s commercial fishing industry, but he says he has never heard a bigger fish story than the claim by the Outer Banks Seafood Festival that it promotes the harvest he and his colleagues work so hard to haul in.

“It’s a deception,” he said, after first using a colorful phrase that rolls more easily off the tongue of a career waterman. “They’re telling people – or at least implying to people – who come down here that they’re going to get local North Carolina seafood. They’re not. What they’re getting is imported. But put that on your sign and see how many people show up. It’s not right. You shouldn’t have to read the fine print.”

A handful of small events along the coast each year feature the blue crabs, brown shrimp, yellowfin tuna and some of the dozens of other shellfish and finfish species that fishermen wrestle from the state’s oceans and sounds. But two of the most heavily promoted festivals – the Outer Banks Seafood Festival in Nags Head and the North Carolina Seafood Festival in Morehead City – predominantly offer the same foreign imports that American consumers typically buy in grocery stores and eat at restaurants.

Festival organizers say they encourage, but can’t force, vendors to serve North Carolina products. They add that those who offer flounder platters and baskets of deep-fried shrimp from booths, between the band performances and the craft tents, say that cost and limited availability make it difficult, if not impossible, to sell only what is homegrown.

Read the full story at The News & Observer 

NC commercial, recreational fishermen saw record harvests in 2015

June 22, 2o16 — North Carolina commercial and recreational fisherman reeled in record harvests last year.

Milder weather allowed fishermen to work longer, harvesting more shrimp and hard blue crab in the latter months, according to the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries.

Shrimp landings increased by 94 percent — the highest since 2008. November 2015 shrimp landings increased by 307 percent from November 2014. Hard blue crabs also increased by 23 percent to 31 million pounds.

“We had the best spring shrimp we’ve ever had,” said Phil Guyer, owner of Coastal Seafood and Propane in Leland. “In fact, we saw shrimp in March and our hometown shrimper said that they’ve never caught shrimp in March. We had a really good year.”

While shrimp and crab harvest flourished, other species in the top five — spiny dogfish, summer flounder, Atlantic croaker — plummeted.

Recreational fishermen caught an estimated 10.2 million fish in 2015, 6.8 percent more seafood than in 2014. Fishermen also released 6 percent more fish in 2015 than in 2014.

Similarly, coastal recreational fishing in 2015 also increased substantially. Dolphin, yellowfin tuna, cobia and wahoo were the top five recreational species harvested. Dolphin catches increased by 132 percent, while wahoo rose by 66 percent and cobia rose 62 percent.The increase in dolphin, wahoo and cobia is likely due to the decline of yellowfin tuna harvests, which was down 10.7 percent last year, Marine Fisheries stated in a news release.

Read the full story at the StarNews Online