August 7, 2013 — The North Carolina’s Division of Marine Fisheries fully assumed implementation of the artificial fishing reef program in 1984, including planning, permitting, construction and maintenance.
“For much of the time,” said Jim Francesconi, coordinator of North Carolina’s program, “we were working quite a bit on the ocean reefs, but early in 2009, we had to make a switch to concentrate on inside waters.
“Part of that, and I think the greatest aspect of it, was a new demographic of users. People have been out in the ocean and have done very well and spent a lot of their life out there and enjoyed it, but some people are now looking more inshore, with a broad range of users. And the other thing is habitat. There are certain species that are very dependent on the estuarine waters, so we’re very heavy right now making reefs with an emphasis on the habitat.”
To fulfill this new mandate, Marine Fisheries has taken several approaches, including improving older existing estuarine reefs (AR 392), construction of new reefs (AR 398) and continued development of oyster reefs and oyster sanctuaries.
Read the full story at the Raleigh News & Observer