THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 26, 1995 TAG: 9509260319
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEW BERN LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
A Louisiana author contended Monday that North Carolina commercial fishermen should join forces to protect fisheries habitat and promote plans that allocate commercial and sports anglers their fair share of the catch.
He said that this was a better approach than outright bans on commercial fishing.
Robert Fritchey, author of the book ``Wetland Riders,'' an account of efforts in Louisiana and Texas to prohibit some types of commercial fishing, claimed efforts in those states were deliberate attempts by the sports fishing industry at monopolizing, not conserving, fish stocks.
And the best weapon North Carolina commercial fishermen have to help them turn back similar efforts in this state is education, Fritchey said.
``Fish are owned by the public, but politics determines who gets to use them,'' Fritchey said, adding that North Carolina commercial fishermen should become much more adept at public relations and public education.
``They have to move in and educate the public more.''
Fritchey spoke at the headquarters of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, the state's largest commercial fishing trade group, which is sponsoring his visit to central and northeastern North Carolina this week.
Association members say that Fritchey's book will draw attentionto efforts by the Coastal Conservation Association and its member groups, such as the Atlantic Coast Conservation Association, to sponsor state net bans throughout the nation and draw attention to alternatives to such a ban.
``Other states got into trouble because they were caught off guard,'' said Jimmy Johnson, president of the Fisheries Association and a Washington, N.C., crab processor and wholesaler. ``That's why it's imperative that we present a united front for commercial fisheries as a whole.
``We have been presented as the villain for a long time now,'' he said. ``And until recently, we haven't had the manpower and the resources available to us to be able to present the other side.
``That's why events like this are so important,'' Johnson said.
A life-long sports angler, Fritchey, 44, began fishing for a living when he was 30, living in a tent on the south Louisiana marshes when he first joined the industry.
Learning through trial and error and with help from other fishermen, Fritchey began plying the inshore waters of Louisiana in the style of Cajun trammel netters for redfish - known in North Carolina as red drum - which, along with spotted seatrout, provides Louisiana's inshore fishermen with the bulk of their income.
In 1988, Fritchey moved to New Orleans and began to write for the National Fisherman, a trade magazine for the nation's commercial fishermen.
The effort by the Texas sports fishing industry in lobbying that state's legislature to change state laws and declare redfish off limits to commercial fishermen prompted Fritchey to write his book.
``A lot of people got hurt badly and I didn't understand what happened,'' he said. ``I knew nothing about fisheries management and politics.
``I wanted to protect my livelihood, to get the redfish back again for commercial fishermen. And I thought the way to do it was through education.''
The ensuing five years have given rise to a nationwide movement to ban commercial fishing nets in many state waters, he said.
In Alabama, commercial fishermen have agreed to limit where gill nets can be used and who can fish them in an effort to hold off a net ban in that state;
California enacted a net ban in state waters in 1990;
In Florida, voters approved a referendum last November banning commercial fishing nets from state waters;
In Louisiana, the seafood management council has filed for a temporary restraining order to block a net ban in that state and has filed a lawsuit on the ground that the ban is unconstitutional and unfair to the commercial seafood industry;
In Maryland, a net ban bill is expected to be introduced next January when Maryland's state legislature meets;
New Jersey has been targeted by a new fishing group, the Save the Fisheries Alliance, for a future net-ban initiative;
In North Carolina, a group of coastal legislators turned back a bill introduced in the General Assembly this spring that called for a non-binding referendum on banning nets in state waters.
The net ban proposals were prompted by efforts in Texas to declare redfish a ``gamefish,'' a move that was promoted by oil interests, coastal developers and marine industries that cater to sports fishermen, Fritchey said.
These initiatives, he contended, come from recreational fishing interests trying to monopolize coastal fishing resources and discredit commercial fishermen who are often the sole voices speaking against pollution from the oil industry and habitat destruction by coastal developers.
As an alternative to net bans, Fritchey endorsed a ``fixed allocation'' system that distributes the catch of species of fish between commercial and sports anglers. Once fisheries managers say ``here are the allocations,'' each group can have control of its own fishery and can change anything its members want within the restrictions of the allocation, Fritchey writes in his book.
As a model for such a system, Fritchey points to striped bass management in the Albemarle Sound region of North Carolina, where managers have divided a set quota between commercial and sports anglers for several years.
He also calls for commercial fishermen to pay a per pound severance tax on fish they bring to port - much like sports anglers now pay a tax on fishing gear. Proceeds from a commercial tax, which could be set as low as 1 cent per pound, could be used to buy and enhance coastal marshes and wetlands which provide valuable habitat for many species of inshore fish and shellfish.
``It would be my dream for the two industries - recreational and commercial - to be fighting about how much money they have to spend to preserve and protect fishery habitat,'' Fritchey said. by CNB