THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 4, 1995 TAG: 9506040065
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 134 lines
For more than 10 years, fishermen could walk into a tackle shop, fill out a handful of forms and buy licenses to use all sorts of commercial fishing gear - everything from crabs pots to trawl nets.
But this winter, after a spate of license changes, the mound of paper work that goes with buying and selling the state's commercial fishing licenses became too much for some dealers.
In June 1993, there were 46 license sales agents. Their numbers have since fallen to 35, according to the Division of Marine Fisheries.
License agents, commercial fishermen and fisheries managers generally agree that the state's commercial fishing license system is broken and should not just be modified but replaced.
They say that not only is the system cumbersome, but it allows too many people who don't make a living as commercial fishermen to use a largely unregulated amount of commercial fishing gear.
Addressing these problems is the first task for the 19-member Moratorium Steering Committee as it tries to ease fishing pressure along North Carolina's coast and preserve the state's $1 billion fishing industry.
Composed mainly of scientists, sports anglers and commercial fishermen, the committee will meet Thursday in Manteo to continue a discussion, begun last month in Wilmington, of commercial licenses and the Marine Fisheries Commission.
The panel is scheduled to report its findings to the General Assembly in May 1996.
``We want to restructure the license system in North Carolina to make it more effective, to make it more manageable and to define the user groups,'' said Robert V. Lucas, chairman of the moratorium committee and the state Marine Fisheries Commission. ``That's the number one area we are focusing upon.''
The committee has two major goals: To reduce the amount of commercial fishing gear in the water by limiting its use to those whose livelihoods depend on coastal fish stocks, and to find a more streamlined and logical way of administering sales of commercial fishing licenses, Lucas said.
``One of the biggest problems with the resource is there is too much gear in the water,'' he said. ``This is an effort to get it out and . . . protect the commercial fishermen.''
Of the 5,044 commercial licenses sold in 16 northeastern counties in fiscal year 1993-94, 2,367 were sold to fishermen who identified themselves as ``full-time'' fishermen. Another 1,287 licenses were sold to ``part-time'' anglers and 1,390 went to ``pleasure'' boaters using commercial gear, according to division license statistics.
But in the Albemarle area that year, only 2,412, about 47 percent, of commercial license-holders also bought the license that allowed them to legally earn money selling their catch.
Statewide 21,941 commercial vessel licenses were sold in fiscal year 1993-94 - a 10-year high - but only 6,781, about 30 percent, were bought by fishermen who also bought the license to sell their catch.
That means as many as 2,632 commercial vessel licenses in the region and as many as 14,160 commercial vessel licenses statewide were sold in 1993-94 to fishermen who were not making their living from the state's fish stocks.
Yet their commercial vessel license allowed them to use a largely unlimited amount of crab pots, nets and other commercial fishing gear to compete with full-time commercial fishermen for their share of the state's coastal fish catch.
And that's too many people and too much gear if the state wants to protect and restore its coastal fish stocks and ensure a future for its commercial fishing industry, Lucas said.
``We're going to have let commercial fishing be for commercial fishermen,'' he said. ``You don't have to be a brain surgeon to figure this out.''
While many commercial fishermen may benefit from the steering committee's recommendations, those who use commercial fishing gear but don't depend on it for the bulk of their livelihoods likely face new restrictions.
``Everybody who uses the resource is in the pot,'' said Mike Street, chief of analysis and planning for the Division of Marine Fisheries and policy analyst for the Moratorium Steering Committee. ``Everything is on the table.''
North Carolina's commercial fishing license has evolved piecemeal over about 72 years through various laws, regulations, rules and data collection procedures.
In 1923, boats used for shellfishing and trawling were charged an average of $5 a year. Fees were levied on different types of commercial fishing gear with charges ranging from 25 cents a year for each shrimp trawl to $1.75 per 100 yards for seines over 1,000 yards, according to fisheries division data.
In 1966, the gear fees ended and the commercial fishing vessel became the primary component of license sales in North Carolina. That year license fees started at $1 for a boat without a motor.
The cost of the basic vessel license - from $1 per foot to $2 per ton depending on the size and type of boat - has not gone up since 1984.
Today, fishermen who own a vessel to use commercial fishing gear to catch fish or shellfish or own a vessel to use any gear to catch fish for sale must buy a commercial fishing license.
Commercial fishermen who don't own a boat must buy a nonvessel endorsement to sell their catch.
``It just doesn't work,'' said Melvin Shepard, owner of New River Nets in Sneads Ferry and a member of the Moratorium Steering Committee.
One idea is a plastic card with an individual license number - much like a driver's license or a credit card - that commercial fishermen can carry with them instead of a seemingly endless file of forms.
The Moratorium Steering Committee may also recommend a cap on the number of commercial fishing licenses sold in the state each year, restrictions on who can buy those licenses and limits on the amount of gear fishermen can license.
The committee could require fishermen to earn as much as 50 percent of their income from commercial fishing to buy a commercial license, or it could create a tiered license system that allows anyone who sells fish to buy a commercial fishing license but restricts access to some species of fish either through income requirements or history and degree of participation, among other options.
None of the restrictions are expected to be very popular among the commercial fishermen who are affected by them, particularly those who fish part-time and pleasure boaters who use commercial fishing gear.
``It's going to be the toughest thing anybody's ever tried to do,'' Shepard said. ``And it's probably going to be that most commercial and recreational fishermen will have some quarrel with something in the package.''
The stakes are high.
Many of the state's major finfish and shellfish species are in a decline and critics have faulted the fisheries division and the Marine Fisheries Commission for failing to stop the trend.
And even as fisheries managers debate commercial license proposals, demand for a North Carolina commercial fishing license continues to increase.
``A tidal wave'' of pleasure boaters and commercial fishermen from Florida and other states where commercial fishing has been restricted in recent years are waiting for the moratorium to end, according to Janice Fulcher, supervisor of the fisheries division's license unit. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
A fisheries panel wants to ``restructure the license system,'' said
chairman Robert V. Lucas.
by CNB