THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 27, 1995 TAG: 9505270409
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROANOKE ISLAND LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Outer Banks watermen want a chunk of the world's highest-priced tuna.
Atlantic bluefin tuna can fetch up to $30,000 each at Japanese sushi markets. The 500- to 1,000-pound fish have been schooling off North Carolina's coast for three years. This winter, hundreds of the giant ocean dwellers were tagged and released off Hatteras Island.
But because the Tar Heel State doesn't have a historic fishery for bluefin tuna, watermen are not allowed to land and sell the profitable species.
Long-liners can sell one bluefin tuna a day if they accidentally catch one while fishing for shark. But if additional bluefin are caught, they have to be thrown overboard or given to food banks. With a special permit, recreational anglers and charter boat parties can keep one bluefin per day if it is under 70 inches - but they can't sell it.
``We could buy a whole lot of rice and beans for those food pantries with the money we could've gotten for the bluefin,'' Hatteras Island commercial fisherman Jeff Aiken told representatives of the National Marine Fisheries Service during a Thursday night meeting at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. ``We need to have the fishery open for us while the fish are out here.''
Along the Atlantic seaboard, watermen can catch 1,235 metric tons of bluefin during summer months, when the tuna swim off New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts. But the National Marine Fisheries Service will not open a winter season for the big fish. Since 1992, bluefin have been off the Outer Banks primarily between December and April.
``We all need a shot at the bluefin. Not just the guys up north,'' Manteo waterman Glen Hopkins said.
``These fish could really make a difference for people's income around here,'' North Carolina Fisheries Association spokesman Bob Peele said. ``It seems like quite a waste of resource to know the bluefin are out there but not let any of our guys cash in on them.''
Most of the 35 fishermen gathered in the aquarium conference room agreed. Commercial watermen, sports anglers and charter boat captains seemed to concur that if northern fishermen were allowed to profit from the bluefin, Carolina watermen should have that right, too.
``The quota was established based on historical data. There hasn't been a bluefin tuna commercialfishery here until recently. If the fishery isn't here, it's hard to establish an allocation of the resource for your state,'' said National Marine Fisheries Service spokeswoman Rebecca Lent.
``We'll take these comments back to Washington, D.C., and talk about them.''
According to Lent, the federal fisheries service is considering dividing up the annual bluefin quota by month, rather than doling out a certain amount of pounds each summer and closing the fishery when that amount is landed. Recommendations say 20 percent of the 1,235 metric ton quota could be caught in June and July; 35 percent in August; 35 percent in September and 10 percent in October.
``If we can't catch and keep the bluefin out here, we can't prove we have a commercial fishery in North Carolina,'' said Hatteras Island waterman Steve Coulter.
``Until we prove we have one, they won't give us any of the national quota. That just doesn't seem right.''
KEYWORDS: COMMERCIAL FISHING BLUEFIN TUNA by CNB