State and Local

May 12, 2015 — Officials with the North Carolina Wildlife Federation (NCWF) and commercial fishermen met at the Crystal Coast Convention Center, all in an effort to raise awareness about some of the issues plaguing our coastal waterways.

Together, the group publicly presented what they’re calling “Sound Solutions”, a campaign to sustain our marine resources. With roughly two and a half million acres of sounds, wetlands, and waterways across the East, making sure all of this real estate is protected may seem like a daunting task. The long term sustainability of many of the state’s fisheries is in question. Popular fish like southern flounder and speckled trout are considered depleted and many more are headed in the same direction. But the group is offering up some solutions to the problem.

David Knight, marine resources policy advisor with the NCWF said this:
“We need to take a comprehensive approach to this challenge of protecting our sounds and estuaries now and sustaining them into the future.”

Read the full story and watch the video from WNCT

May 12, 2015 — The U.S. Forest Service announced today that the National Forests in North Carolina in cooperation with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) and other partners will host a series of Kids Fishing Day events throughout May and June at sites across the state.

The events are free for children ages 12 years and younger. All children must be accompanied by an adult. Participants are encouraged to bring their own poles though most events will have bait and extra poles available. Children must be able to handle their poles independently though adults may assist in reeling.

Read the full story from the Sun Journal

May 6, 2015 — Residents of Reedville just got a new neighbor.

Bret Scholtes was already no stranger to Reedville and the rest of Northumberland County; as the CEO of Omega Protein, he visits every six weeks or so in winter and in the summer he spends several days here each week.  His wife and children spend the whole summer in Reedville.  Scholtes announced Saturday that he has purchased a house on Cockrell’s Creek, making him the town’s newest resident.

Read the full story from the Northumberland Echo

May 8, 2015 — Welcome to Ocean County, Mary Lee.

The nearly 16-foot, 3,456-pound female great white shark (or Carcharodon carcharias, if you prefer the scientific term), which goes by the name Mary Lee, was last spotted off the southern end of Long Beach Island this morning after reaching the coast of New Jersey yesterday.

The great white shark appears to trekking its way north along the New Jersey coastline, just a couple weeks away from Memorial Day Weekend and the kickoff to beach season.

It is also nearly a year from the anniversary of the 1916 shark attack on the Jersey coast that killed four people. The first attack, July 1, 1916, happened very near to where Mary Lee is today, Beach Haven.

It is believed a great white shark was responsible for those attacks, though records from the time dispute whether the additional attack in Matawan was a great white or a bull shark.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press

May 6, 2015 — The center is attempting to put momentum into creating more partnerships for survey work between the industry and NOAA, and to breach the wall that has kept NOAA from embracing independent and/or outside research in its decision-making, which is sharply limited under the current version of the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Act.

Steve Cadrin, a marine scientist at SMAST and specialist in survey work, gave a detailed presentation about the NOAA estimates, and finished with the same thought as Lang: that NOAA must be somehow persuaded to join forces.

Lang encouraged those present to begin contacting state legislators and members of Congress, spelling out the problems and asking for NOAA budgets to be used as leverage to reform the agency.

Among the problems are the concerns about skimpy and incompetent fishing by the crew of the Bigelow, NOAA’s research vessel. Bigelow’s survey results for Georges Bank are strongly contradicted by the early returns of research by Kevin Stokesbury of SMAST, who presented an update of his new camera trawl equipment. His videos show an endless abundance of yellowtail flounder everywhere in the Georges Bank closed areas, where NOAA sees next to none.

David Goethel of Gloucester presented photos showing huge landings of cod in Georges Bank. He said he alone could used up the entire total annual catch allowance for cod in three fishing days if he had to.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times