THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 30, 1995 TAG: 9506300462
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, N.C. LENGTH: Long : 113 lines
North Carolina fisheries regulators apparently oppose a federal plan to prohibit the catch of weakfish in offshore waters from Maine to Florida.
But they stopped short of saying so Wednesday night, leaving some members of one state fisheries panel frustrated with a presentation by the Division of Marine Fisheries and its director's recommendations about the federal plan.
The finfish committee voted 7-3 to ``strongly oppose'' the proposed moratorium on weakfish in offshore waters and recommended that the division and the Marine Fisheries Commission also ``strongly oppose'' the plan.
The meeting was the first public airing of the division's response to the federal proposal.
``We have to question the results of this - what it will accomplish,'' said fisheries Director Bruce L. Freeman at a meeting in Washington of a finfish subcomittee of the Marine Fisheries Commission.
``As an alternative to a complete closure, we're proposing a minimum size for all EEZ fisheries with a gear appropriate to take the target, minimum size fish.''
In practice, this concept would mean little change for North Carolina fishermen who currently comply with state minimum standards for weakfish and gear restrictions while they are in state waters, Freeman said after the meeting.
The division was reluctant to take a stronger stand against the EEZ - Exclusive Economic Zone - closure without offering an alternative because it did not want to anger the other Atlantic Coast states, most of whom favor the moratorium on weakfish, Freeman said.
But Freeman frustrated one committee member and the state's top fisheries official by failing to respond to direct questions about the division's position.
After repeated questioning by Curtis Donaldson, a member of thefinfish committee, the panel voted to ask the division to develop a specific counter-proposal to the federal plan and present that proposal to the Marine Fisheries Commission when it meets next week in New Bern.
``In other words, I'd like to know the official position of the Division of Marine Fisheries,'' said Curtis L. Donaldson, a member of the finfish committee and the Marine Fisheries Commission.
During the meeting, Donaldson repeatedly asked Freeman if the division opposed a moratorium on the catch and possession of weakfish within the Atlantic Ocean Exclusive Economic Zone. And Freeman repeatedly deferred questioning.
After the meeting, Marine Fisheries Commission Chairman Robert V. Lucas, a Selma attorney, said he was also frustrated by the division's lack of response and talked privately with Freeman about his answers.
``The frustration is simply that we need a position from the division,'' he said after the three-hour meeting. ``I am confident now that we will have it at the next meeting.''
The commission is scheduled to consider the National Marine Fisheries Service plan on July 7 in New Bern. NMFS will hold public hearings on the proposal the following week in Morehead City and Manteo.
Weakfish landings by commercial and recreational fishermen along the Atlantic Coast have declined steadily in the last 30 years, from 80 million pounds landed in 1980 to 19.9 million pounds in 1990 and 8 million pounds in 1993 - about a 90 percent decrease over 13 years, according to state and federal statistics.
And in 1993, weakfish had not reproduced in sufficient numbers to replace the population that was taken from Atlantic Coast waters through fishing, according to federal data.
``That's the thing that really got our attention,'' said William T. Hogarth, former state fisheries director who is now with the National Marine Fisheries Service's interjurisdictional fisheries division, which proposed the EEZ ban.
``The data very clearly indicates that something needs to be done.''
North Carolina officials on Wednesday claimed the NMFS proposal is on outdated data.
In 1994 and 1995, they say, the stocks of weakfish have begun to improve.
But Hogarth said earlier this week from Silver Spring, Md., that it will take more than one year of improvement in populations of weakfish to signal a recovery of the stock.
The National Marine Fisheries Service would prohibit the catch and possession of weakfish by recreational and commercial fishermen in the Atlantic Coast exclusive economic zone, a conservation zone between 3 and 200 miles in the Atlantic Ocean off East Coast states from Maine to Florida.
The proposal also would bar fishermen who are plying EEZ waters from possessing weakfish, also known as gray trout, even if they are taken while catching other species of fish. The plan stipulates that such bycatch must be released to the water as soon as possible.
NMFS officials have set Sept. 1 as a target date.
Most commercial fishermen and state fisheries regulators worry that the proposal would leave a significant number of Hatteras commercial fishermen scrambling for something else to do this winter and could lead to a significant increase in inshore fishing.
North Carolina is expected to be one of the few Atlantic Coast states to oppose the plan.
State fisheries directors from several northern states, some of whom have pressed for stronger weakfish regulations for almost 10 years, said in interviews earlier this week that they support the NMFS and have little sympathy for North Carolina commercial fishermen who say they would be hurt by the proposal.
``As a resource management agency, we feel that stocks have been overfished,'' said Andy Manus, director of the Division of Fish and Wildlife in Delaware. ``It would help to have the EEZ closed.''
Phil Coates, director of the Division of Marine Fisheries in Massachusetts, said that if steps aren't taken now to protect weakfish, Atlantic Coast fishermen will face a collapse in populations of the fish similar to that experienced by cod fishermen in the northeast. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
STEVE STONE/Staff
WEAKFISH: STRONG CATCH FOR N.C.
SOURCE: National Marine Fisheries Service, Silver Spring, Md.
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB