July 26, 2013 — I asked someone, well, where will we get our seafood? I was told China, Argentina, places like that. I don’t know about you, but I am not interested in eating shrimp from overseas. Tim Hergenrader, who proposed this petition, is from Nebraska and is an artist in New Bern. Gosh, an artist from the western part of the USA suggesting to change the laws of commercial fishing in North Carolina.
If you care about your local seafood and if you are like me depending on the commercial fishermen to bring you the wonderful bounty of our local waters, then help the commercial fishermen. We can no longer sit back and wait to see what happens.
I am not a commercial fisherman. I am not a member of any recreational fisherman organization. I purchase a recreational fishing license every year but have not put a hook and sinker in the water for over two years. I do eat seafood. I eat crabs, fish, oysters, clams, shrimp and I depend on someone else to catch all the seafood that I eat. Sometimes, a recreational fishermen will share his catch but most of the time; I purchase seafood that has been caught or harvested by a commercial fisherman.
On Tuesday July 30, at 12:30 p.m. there will be joint meeting of the Finfish, Habitat and Water Quality, Shellfish/Crustacean and Sea Turtle Advisory Committees at New Bern Riverfront Convention Center. This meeting is crucial to the commercial fishermen and to the seafood consumer in North Carolina. A petition that was presented to the Marine Fisheries Commission by Tim Hergenrader, who lives in New Bern, has asked the commission to reclassify waters and adopt a rule that makes and I quote from the NC Fisheries website, “The petition asks the Marine Fisheries Commission to adopt a rule that makes North Carolina’s internal coastal waters permanent secondary nursery areas, unless they are currently designated as primary nursery areas or special secondary nursery areas. The petition states the primary effect of the proposed rule would be to halt shrimp trawling in North Carolina inshore waters.”
What this means is that shrimpers and crabbers will no longer be able to trawl in the local rivers, Neuse, Pamlico, Cape Fear nor the Sounds, Core, Pamlico, Bogue, all the waters from the Virginia state line to the South Carolina state line. This petition states that all trawling for crabs and shrimp should be caught in the Atlantic Ocean.
I asked someone, well, where will we get our seafood? I was told China, Argentina, places like that. I don’t know about you, but I am not interested in eating shrimp from overseas. Tim Hergenrader, who proposed this petition, is from Nebraska and is an artist in New Bern. Gosh, an artist from the western part of the USA suggesting to change the laws of commercial fishing in North Carolina.
There is a long time battle that has been going on between these two fishing groups. Who is right and who is wrong? Who has the most money and power and who depends on the law to be fair? As I write, I have a vision of a boxing ring … and in the right corner, heavy weight boxer “Mr. Recreation Fisherman weighing in at 225 pounds and in the left corner, light weight Mr. Commercial Fisherman weighing in at 135 pounds.” Cheering on the heavyweight are the Recreation Fishing organizations with their lobbyist, boat manufactures, boat dealers and money and cheering on the Light Weight is, well folks like me who enjoy seafood and think nothing about how and what the commercial fisherman deals with to catch the seafood that I eat. So I am writing this story so that just the average person who loves seafood can maybe understand what is happening to our commercial fishermen here in North Carolina.
Read the full opinion piece at the New Bern, North Carolina Sun Journal