THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 30, 1995 TAG: 9509300287
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HATTERAS ISLAND LENGTH: Long : 110 lines
While cruising above the south end of Hatteras Island this week, a charter plane conducting Outer Banks air tours spotted a huge leatherback turtle caught in a fishing net.
Officials with the Hatteras Island Rescue Squad, the National Park Service and the U.S. Coast Guard responded to the scene in boats and four-wheel-drive vehicles. But by the time they got to the gill net - about a half-mile south of Cape Point - two turtles were dead.
Leatherback turtles are endangered species protected by federal law.
But since the net was legally set in state waters, law enforcement officials said the fisherman who owns the net did not commit a crime. ``If turtles are caught incidental to legal fishing operations, then there's no offense,'' North Carolina Marine Fisheries Service marine patrolman Capt. M.R. Willis said Friday from his Columbia office. Willis said, however, that the state and federal fisheries services are still investigating the incident.
This is the second time this summer that endangered turtles have been found in large-mesh nets set off Cape Point. In June, two loggerhead turtles were released alive from a similar net that was probably set by the same person, National Marine Fisheries Service biologist Sheryan Epperly said Friday from her Beaufort office.
``There are continual reports of turtles entangled in gill nets along the North Carolina coast,'' Epperly said.
Officers from the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries and the National Marine Fisheries Service did not release the name of the fisherman who set the net.
Members of the state's Marine Fisheries Commission said the incident underscores the need for better regulations on mesh sizes and placement - and limits on the time nets are allowed to remain unattended in the ocean.
The two turtles weighed about 400 and 300 pounds, and measured about 5 feet and 4 feet 9 inches long, respectively. They were tangled in a gill net set for catching Atlantic shark. The net has an 11 1/2-inch mesh - considerably larger than other types of gill nets.
Although federal waters closed to commercial shark fishing this month, watermen who hold state licenses are still allowed to catch shark within 3 miles of the coast.
The larger a net's mesh size, the more likely large turtles are to get caught in it. ``With small-sized mesh, the nets act more like a wall to the turtles - deflecting them but not entangling them,'' Epperly said. ``But this size net was big enough for the turtles to get caught, too.''
After cutting the bodies out of the net, rescue workers towed the giant reptiles to shore. They tied ropes around the turtles' broad backs and dragged them up the beach with four-wheel-drive trucks. Before biologists could determine the sex of the turtles - or get much time to study them - tides carried the animals out and buried them at sea.
``We did not get a chance to do necropsies on these turtles. And the first one was moderately decomposed by the time they got it. So there could be some question about its cause of death,'' Epperly said. The turtle could already have been dead when it washed into the net. Or it could have been sick or injured.
``The second turtle, however, was so entangled in the net, that had to be the cause of death for that turtle,'' Epperly said. ``A dead turtle could not have gotten itself so tangled up.''
Worried about such incidents, the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission proposed a new law last week that would prohibit nets with meshes larger than 7 inches from being set in the Atlantic Ocean. Public hearings on the proposed rule change will be held across the coast in October. The 17-member panel is expected to vote on the issue when it meets in Hatteras Village on Nov. 30.
``Our basic concern was that those bigger mesh nets would kill something as a by-catch - turtles and any number of other things you don't want them to,'' North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission Chairman Bob Lucas said Friday. ``That proposed rule would prevent this type of thing from happening. The law could go into effect within 30 days of the time it's passed.''
Although state fisheries officials promised not to impose additional rules on commercial fishing while they study overhauling the entire system and prohibit any new commercial fishing licenses from being sold, new laws can still be implemented:
If the state has to pass provisions to comply with Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission laws,
If the state has to resolve a social conflict regarding fisheries issues, or
If the state determines it needs new regulations to protect its resources.
``That particular rule change idea came from commercial fishermen on the Outer Banks who used the large mesh netting and had problems with it,'' North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission member Bill Foster said Friday from his Hatteras Village home. ``There were big incidents of turtle strandings north of Oregon Inlet and around Cape Hatteras earlier this summer. There's no way to tell when they wash up whether the turtles died in other ways or were caught in nets. But the only type of net that could've caused those deaths are the shark nets.
``I have some of those nets. But I won't use them again,'' said Foster, a commercial fisherman. ``I fished them until I caught a turtle last summer. Then I quit.''
Epperly said the shark net probably was set almost continuously and fished once every 24 hours. By requiring fishermen to check the nets more frequently - or attend them - some turtles that get tangled in the mesh might be saved, she said.
Studies show that turtles can survive about an hour after being caught in shrimp trawlers.
Although shrimp and flounder trawlers are required to have Turtle Excluder Devices on their nets so that the large animals will have an escape hatch if caught, gill and pound nets cannot carry turtle excluder devices because they are stationary - rather than dragged across the bottom.
``TEDs won't work in gill nets,'' Epperly said. ``The only real option you have to keep the turtles out of the nets is to regulate the mesh size or require the fishermen to check their nets more often.''
KEYWORDS: TURTLE ENDANGERED SPECIES by CNB