Saving Seafood

News for the South Atlantic Region

Death toll rises from Helene while supplies are rushed to North Carolina and Florida digs out

September 30, 2024 — Authorities struggled to get water and other supplies to isolated, flood-stricken areas across the U.S. Southeast in the wake of Hurricane Helene as the death toll from the storm rose to nearly 100.

A North Carolina county that includes the mountain city of Asheville reported 30 people killed due to the storm, and several other fatalities reported in North Carolina Sunday pushed the overall death toll to at least 91 people across several states.

Supplies were being airlifted to the region around the isolated city. Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder pledged that she would have food and water into Ashville — which is known for its arts, culture and natural attractions — by Monday.

“We hear you. We need food and we need water,” Pinder said on a Sunday call with reporters. “My staff has been making every request possible to the state for support and we’ve been working with every single organization that has reached out. What I promise you is that we are very close.”

Read the full article at The Associated Press

SOUTH CAROLINA: Despite requests, Gov. Henry McMaster hasn’t declared an emergency on shrimp dumping. Here’s why.

September 25, 2024 — Lowcountry shrimpers are in trouble.

It’s a message local fishermen have spread with urgency in recent years: If not for intervention at the state and federal level, South Carolina’s shrimping industry may soon be washed away in a storm of economic upheaval created in large part by the dumping of foreign shrimp into the U.S. market.

Solutions to that problem have proved difficult to navigate.

Several coastal communities thought they were on the right path late last year. By the end of 2023, four Lowcountry municipalities — Beaufort and Bluffton along with McClellanville and Mount Pleasant — sent letters urging Gov. Henry McMaster to declare an economic disaster due to imported shrimp dumping. Now, as we get deeper into 2024, the governor has yet to make that declaration.

The gesture by the municipalities was both a symbolic show of support and a genuine effort to enact change from state leaders. But, in reality, it is not within the governor’s power to fulfill the requests because the economic disaster caused by shrimp dumping did not begin with a natural disaster.

Read the full article at The Post and Courier 

Can US seafood industry revive? Mayor and fishmonger Larry Toomer has a recipe.

September 25, 2024 — Day after day, the piles of shucked shells slowly become tiny mountains behind Bluffton Oyster Co., a gray clapboard shack where a crew of fast hands pries away at oysters and crabs, a bounty bound for local markets and eateries.

In many ways, Bluffton’s May River waterfront here is a throwback to bygone days when local fishermen and fish houses provided most of America’s seafood. Now, like a pearl inside an oyster, the smooth, shiny prospect of renewal – of sustainability and food self-sufficiency – awaits discovery.

Helming the charge for renewal is Bluffton, South Carolina’s new Mayor Larry Toomer, the oyster shack’s owner, who sees as his mandate preserving and linking a working waterfront to the region’s growing suburbs. Why does this gambit matter beyond America’s Low Country? Because the seafood unloaded here plays a crucial role in the nation’s health and security, Mayor Toomer says.

“I used to think nuclear war was our biggest threat,” he says. “Now I think it’s our ability to feed ourselves if something goes wrong.”

Aside from coastal recreational opportunities, Americans have become largely disconnected from the ocean’s riches. In fact, the United States is the world’s second-biggest commercial fishery. But the White House National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health doesn’t even mention seafood as an asset.

Experts say that “blue food” isn’t a part of a broader conversation about America’s food security or food system transformation largely because of a common public perception that fish, oysters, and shrimp are a luxury, not a necessity. At the same time, the gap between fish catchers and fish eaters – no more “my neighbor is a shrimper” – has widened.

The challenge, says Mayor Toomer, is a sense among local fishers that “we’ve basically been left to die” even as seafood consumption has risen from 12 pounds to 20 pounds per capita in the past 30 years.

Read the full article at the The Christian Science Monitor

Council Approves Proposed Changes to Snapper Grouper Fishery; Receives Red Snapper Notification

September 23, 2024 —

Members of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council approved two amendments to the Snapper Grouper Fishery Management Plan that, if approved by the Secretary of Commerce, would modify current federal regulations for species in the snapper grouper management complex. The Council considered input received during public comment and recommendations from its Snapper Grouper Advisory Panel and Scientific and Statistical Committee before taking action during its quarterly meeting in Charleston, South Carolina. The following amendments were approved:

Regulatory Amendment 36 – Gag and Black Grouper Recreational Vessel Limits and On-Demand Gear for Black Sea Bass Pot Fishery

The amendment would revise the recreational vessel limits for Gag and Black Grouper. To remain consistent with a bag limit of one Gag or Black Grouper, the amendment would change the aggregate private recreational vessel limit to two fish of either species per day. For-hire (charter and headboat) would have the same vessel limit per trip.

Gag are currently overfished and experiencing overfishing. Black Grouper are included in the amendment due to misidentification issues that occur in some areas within the region. The Council will address Black Grouper regulations again following the results of a management strategy evaluation underway for the species.

The amendment would also revise transit stowage requirements for commercial black sea bass pots with on-demand (ropeless) gear.

Amendment 55 – Scamp, Yellowmouth Grouper, and the Other Shallow Water Grouper Complex

Scamp and Yellowmouth Grouper are overfished, but overfishing is not occurring. A rebuilding plan is needed to address the overfished stock status. Measures proposed in Amendment 55 would establish a Scamp and Yellowmouth Grouper Complex. A rebuilding plan would be established for the new management complex along with catch levels, sector allocations, and accountability measures.

Updates would be made to the Other Shallow Water Grouper Complex (Rock Hind, Red Hind, Coney, Graysby, and Yellowfin Grouper), to remove Yellowmouth Grouper.

Red Snapper

During its meeting, the Council received a litigation briefing from NOAA General Counsel noting there are three Red Snapper cases currently under litigation. One lawsuit alleges that NOAA Fisheries violated the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act because it failed to address overfishing of Red Snapper. The settlement agreement for this case was approved on August 22, 2024, and includes NOAA Fisheries agreeing to complete and submit a Secretarial amendment to end overfishing of Red Snapper. The Final Rule for the amendment must be submitted to the Federal Register by June 6, 2025.

 

The Council will be able to comment on the Secretarial amendment, and there will be opportunities for public comment prior to implementation. For additional details, see the Fishery Bulletin from NOAA Fisheries.

 

Other Business

The Council continued discussion of management measures proposed for the Black Sea Bass fishery that will be addressed in Snapper Grouper Amendment 56. The amendment will also consider revised catch level recommendations and status determination reference points. The Scientific and Statistical Committee will discuss Black Sea Bass during its October 22-24, 2024 meeting and provide recommendations for the Council to consider when it meets again in December. Public scoping meetings on proposed measures are tentatively scheduled for early 2025.

 

The Council approved a motion to amend both the Coral and Shrimp Fishery Management Plans to establish a Shrimp Fishery Access Area along the eastern edge of the Northern Oculina Coral Habitat Area of Particular Concern, located off the central east coast of Florida. The designated area would allow access to historical fishing areas used by the rock shrimp fishery while minimizing impacts on deepwater coral.

 

A listening session hosted by the Marine Recreational Information Program, administered by NOAA Fisheries, was held during the meeting week. Fishery managers use data from the program to make management decisions affecting recreational fisheries. Council members received an update on a large-scale study being conducted to determine differences in recreational fishing effort estimates between different survey designs. The program is also re-evaluating approaches to data collection partnerships. Council members provided an extensive list of recommendations and members of the public also provided input.

 

New Chair and Vice-Chair

During the meeting the Council elected Trish Murphey, representative for the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries and former vice-chair as the new chair of the Council. She replaces Dr. Carolyn Belcher. Jessica McCawley, state representative for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission was elected vice chair. Both will serve two-year terms.

 

Additional information about the Council’s September meeting, including final committee reports, is available from the Council’s website at: https://safmc.net/events/september-2024-council-meeting/. The next meeting of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council is scheduled for December 2-6, 2024, in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.

Photo credit: SC Sea Grant; Return ‘Em Right

North Carolina Oyster Restoration Project Trains the Next Generation of Marine Scientists

September 9, 2024 — The North Carolina Coastal Federation is taking a new, transformational approach to restoration. They are partnering with the state Division of Marine Fisheries to construct more than 100 acres of oyster reef habitat in the Pamlico Sound. They’re also preparing science students to tackle the country’s conservation and coastal resilience challenges. NOAA’s Office of Habitat Conservation awarded the Federation $14.9 million through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act for this work.

They are partnering with North Carolina State University’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST) and North Carolina Central University (NCCU), a Historically Black University. These partnerships are expanding opportunities for underrepresented students.

“With climate change, sea level rise, and all the other things the environment is experiencing, we need to train the next generation of restoration practitioners,” says Dr. Dave Eggleston, Director of CMAST. “We also know that the more diverse the workforce, the better the ideas generated.”

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

NORTH CAROLINA: Commercial-recreational flounder fishery dispute flares in North Carolina

August 23, 2024 — A conflict between commercial and recreational fishermen in the U.S. state of North Carolina may be resolved at the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission meeting, which runs through Friday, 23 August.

Tensions between the two groups flared after NCMFC Chair Rob Bizzell insisted his panel will not open the state’s southern flounder fishery to recreational anglers this year. However, a July vote by the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission (WRC) approved a hook-and-line recreational season for 1, 2, 7, and 8 September, with a daily limit of one fish per angler and a minimum size of 15 inches within the waters that fall under the commission’s jurisdiction, which include waters that the MFC also oversees.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The Long Road to Ropeless Fishing

August 21, 2024 — The past decade has not been kind to North Atlantic right whales—or to the fishers who ply the waters where these massive mammals dwell. For the whales that migrate along the North American east coast between Florida and Canada each spring and fall, several perils have caused their population to fall catastrophically, including getting tangled in fishing gear, hit by boats, or afflicted by climate change. From a modern high of 480 individuals in 2010, their numbers have plummeted more than 25 percent to about 350 today.

But fishers have suffered, too. In an attempt to protect the withering whale population, government agencies have restricted fishing gear and closed fisheries along the Eastern Seaboard. For many fishers—including Michael “Chops” Cowdrey Jr., a captain based out of Sneads Ferry, North Carolina—the closures were financially devastating.

Cowdrey is just one of 32 members of the small Atlantic sea bass pot fishery—a community of fishers operating from Florida to North Carolina who use traps on vertical lines to catch the bulldog-sized fish. Cowdrey lost much of his income when, in 2013, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began imposing a seasonal closure on the pot fishery from November to April—peak sea bass season.

Read the full article at Hakai Magazine

Flounder fishery dispute grows as August meeting approaches

August 15, 2024 — The flounder conflict continues into next week’s North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC) meeting, which will be held in Raleigh from Aug. 21-23. The bone of contention is between the MFC and the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission (WRC) about this year’s recreational flounder season.

The only agenda items for the meeting mention flounder, including a report from the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries staff on the Southern Flounder Stock Assessment Update and the 2023 Southern Flounder landings. According to Island Free Press, the report is expected to be the basis for deciding how much quota is available for a commercial season in the sounds and coastal rivers that has previously taken place in September and October.

The MFC chairman, Rob Bizzell, insists that his panel will not open the flounder fishery to recreational anglers this year. However, a vote last month by the NC WRC would allow recreational fishing, which would be a hook-and-line season for Sept. 1, 2, 7, and 8 with a daily limit of one fish per angler and a minimum size of 15 inches within the waters that fall under their jurisdiction. The areas would include joint waters that the MFC also oversees, creating controversy over whether or not to open the recreational season.

WRC chair Monty Crump has been trading letters with Bizzell to hold an emergency meeting to reconsider how southern flounder is allocated between commercial and recreational sectors to allow the recreational season in all waters. Bizzell said in letters, “MFC will be sticking to its plan adopted this spring to not allow a recreational season for flounder this year.” He also stated that fishermen who try to keep flounder caught in or transported through both coastal and joint waters will be subject to enforcement efforts of the NC Marine Patrol.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NORTH CAROLINA: Local rep, fishermen call on state to improve fishery management after flounder season cancellation

August 12, 2024 — Recreational fishermen have been barred from catching the state’s most valued finifish, the Southern flounder, this year because they exceeded last year’s quota. But anglers say this season’s cancellation reflects a larger management issue at the state level.

The Division of Marine Fisheries, part of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality, announced the cancellation of the season, set for two weeks in September, on May 23.

Calculations from the 2023 season indicate the recreational catch of Southern flounder exceeded the quota allowed under the stock rebuilding plan set by the state in 2022.

Over two decades ago, state researchers determined Southern flounder were overfished and overfishing was occurring. The two terms carry different meanings: overfished is when a population is below a level needed to sustain itself, and overfishing means they are actively being caught at an unsustainable rate.

Limits were put on recreational and commercial anglers with the goal of rebuilding the flounder population. Per the current management plan, commercial fishermen are allocated 70% of the stock while recreational anglers get 30%, based on the proportion of flounder historically caught by commercial and recreational fishermen. However, the goal is for the groups to reach parity in 2026.

Read the full article at NJ Spotlight News

Alabama senators’ red snapper legislation moves forward

August 9, 2024 — Backers of red snapper legislation advancing in the United States Senate say it could protect the United States market from illegal Mexican fishing – though its approach relies on technology that has yet to be developed.

In fact, a bill backed by three Republican senators — Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, along with Ted Cruz of Texas — is a call for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to figure out the methodology needed to create nationality field test kits for red snapper. It sets a two-year deadline.

If enacted, the legislation would give the under secretary of commerce for standards & technology and the director of the NIST, a position currently held by Laurie Locascio, a two-year deadline. It calls for the under secretary to work with the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to develop a “joint standard of methodology based on chemical analysis for identifying the country of origin of red snapper.”

By the two-year deadline, the under secretary would be required to submit a report that sums up the methods developed as well as “a plan for operationalizing the methodology.” That’s clarified elsewhere as “a field kit that can be easily carried by one individual,” involves minimal processing time, and its otherwise suited to the needs of law enforcement officers in the field.

Read the full article at AL