THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 30, 1996 TAG: 9607300255
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NAGS HEAD LENGTH: 103 lines
Recreational anglers might have to purchase $10 permits to fish in the state's coastal waters.
Commercial fishermen might have to prove they earned at least $5,000 - or half their income - from working their nets before they'd be allowed to buy a license.
And only full-time watermen would be able to sell seafood.
Those are among the possible results if recommendations a state panel plans to vote on this week become law.
``The suggestions we now have in draft form will definitely have an immediate impact on recreational and commercial fishermen,'' said Hatteras Village resident Susan West, a member of the state's Moratorium Steering Committee who has spent two years working to overhaul North Carolina's coastal fisheries. ``They really signify a strong philosophical change in the way our state views fishing.
``A lot of folk feel fishing is their right. We're working on the premise that fishing is not a right - it's a privilege. That's a pretty drastic shift.
``But it's needed at this time because of our growing population.''
To satisfy the requests of some fishermen and fisheries managers who feared North Carolina's water-based resources were being depleted, the General Assembly approved a two-year ban on the sale of new commercial fishing licenses in 1994 and appointed an 18-member Moratorium Steering Committee to examine the state's fisheries.
On Thursday and Friday, committee members are expected to vote on more than 100 rule changes suggested by subcommittees. Provisions that are approved will be discussed during 19 public meetings across the state. By Nov. 1, the committee is expected to send its final proposals to the Legislature's Joint Seafood and Aquaculture Committee. The General Assembly will begin addressing new laws in 1997. So the earliest most of these changes could go into effect would be two years from now.
``We'll need time to put all the new provisions into place and work out all the new structures for licensing,'' Division of Marine Fisheries spokesman Mike Street said Monday from his Morehead City office. ``There's still a lot of work to be done.''
In North Carolina, 21,000 people hold commercial fishing licenses. Of that number, 6,500 hold state permits to sell their catches. An estimated 600,000 additional anglers enjoy recreational fishing along the coast.
Scientists say the 100-plus pages of recommended rule changes eventually will help fishermen by restoring fish stocks. Some sport fishermen don't feel the suggestions go far enough to address the impact commercial fishing has onfish populations. And many commercial fishermen who earn their income on the water think the proposed laws are too restrictive.
Members of the Coastal Conservation Association of North Carolina, who lobby for recreational anglers, say recreational fishermen who use commercial gear should have to abide by bag limits that ``correspond to recreational hook and line bag limits'' and advocate that the state's Marine Fisheries Commission should ``impose a cap on these licenses, if needed.''
CCA-NC members also support restricting ``fishing gear which is nonselective in its use.'' And they want to see ``increased fisheries law enforcement through appropriations for more officers and through the establishment of a properly trained volunteer corps.''
Members of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, who represent commercial fishermen and seafood dealers, say they support extending the moratorium on the sale of commercial fishing licenses ``until fishery management plans - complete with proper stock assessments - are a reality and the Division of Marine Fisheries is operating on an even keel.''
Fisheries Association members, however, oppose a saltwater sport fishing license because they don't feel state regulators have a proper system in place to handle such a permit. And, for the same reason, they ``simply cannot embrace recommendations specifying who can fish and who cannot, how often, with what type of gear, how much of it, and how many crew members they can use to do it, when little information is available regarding the status of stocks, specific gear impacts and fishing effort.''
One of the most positive recommendations of the Moratorium Steering Committee, many fishermen said, is a proposal that the state develop a mechanism for collecting information about ``catch-per unit of effort'' so that landing figures alone would not be used to determine how healthy certain species of fish are.
By measuring how many fish are caught compared to how many people are fishing for them with what amount of gear, regulators would get a better overall picture of what's in North Carolina's waters.
``I feel like there are a lot of positive rules in there - and some that will be negative to portions of the commercial fishermen,'' said Ocracoke seafood dealer Murray Fulcher, who is a member of the Moratorium Steering Committee. ``Some of the part-timers might be left out if they use this 50-percent or $5,000 income requirement. A lot of people who fish a few weeks of the year might be impacted in their ability to earn an income.
``But I think it's a good idea to continue the moratorium,'' Fulcher said. ``If we don't keep some kind of cap on the number of commercial licenses sold, we'll have a huge influx of fishermen from Florida, Louisiana and other states that have net bans in place pouring into North Carolina.''
Recreational angler Pete West, also a member of the steering committee, agreed. He thinks there are too many crab pots, pound nets and other types of commercial gear already in the state's waters. But until fisheries management plans are in place - probably sometime around the turn of the century - it's not practical to limit the overall amount of gear, he said.
``One of the features of the recreational saltwater license is that it would enable the state to fund research to determine the impact sports fishermen and commercial watermen are having on our resources,'' West said. ``The money from those licenses would go back to enhance the resource. . . . At some point, we'll have it.
``In the meantime,'' West said Monday, ``we'd like to hear support for some of these recommendations as well as constructive criticism on them. We need a lot of feedback. We've been working on this a long time.'' by CNB