What must NC do to protect fishing in coastal waters? See what study says.

RALEIGH, N.C. — During a recent, failed push to ban shrimp trawling in North Carolina sounds, an opponent mentioned a study commissioned by the General Assembly expected to shed light on the state’s coastal and marine fisheries.

The report is now released and doesn’t take a stand on whether a trawling ban is needed to save fish populations or underwater habitats in this state’s coastal waters.

But it does bring several findings and recommendations related to fisheries in state-managed coastal waters, including the Pamlico, Currituck, Bogue and Core sounds. Among the most significant:

— North Carolina’s fisheries are “intensely managed,” and the level of management equals or exceeds intensity in other states throughout the Southeast, the Mid-Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.

— Despite that, North Carolina “continues to exhibit challenges” in protecting and enhancing coastal fisheries, including its southern flounder stock.

— North Carolina protects more than 80,000 acres of primary maritime nurseries in shallow estuaries by restricting commercial fishing activity and nearby development. Yet “there is no clear evidence” that this increases populations of juvenile fish and crustaceans as much as anticipated. And further study is needed to identify contributing environmental factors.

— State fisheries and coastal habitats are “under pressure from fishing, coastal and inland development, climate variability, and other human activities.”

— Fisheries’ health should be assessed by an ecosystem-based management approach, with quantitative “indicators” tracking pressures on estuary and coastal waters regularly measured and analyzed.

— The state should create a “Science and Statistical Committee” to set species-specific fish harvest control rules, one that makes use of new technologies and data collection to help guide its limits.

Reactions to NC Collaboratory study

Glenn Skinner, executive director of the NC Fisheries Association, which represents commercial fishermen, told The News & Observer he was hoping the study would offer more detail about stocks of particular fish species in various states, along with fisheries management practices in other states, so they could be compared to North Carolina.

“You constantly hear these claims that North Carolina’s fisheries are worse because of gillnetting or shrimp trawling, and it’s allowed here and not other places,” Skinner said. “Our understanding was, the purpose of this study was to see if that was true, to compare our fisheries.”

He noted that the Policy Implementation Report — an anticipated 400-page document that promises to provide context for recommendations and include information including fishery and data analyses and policy evaluation — could bring more clarity when it is released later this year.

Republican Rep. Jimmy Dixon, a co-chair of the Environmental Review Commission, brought praise.

“The study recommending that the Legislature move forward with independent science and data, with cooler more trustful stakeholder input, with ecosystem-based management, reversing patterns of habitat degradation, and re-evaluating the PNA [primary nursery area] network to focus on the resource should bring a breath of fresh air to this long debated issue,” Dixon said.

In a statement, North Carolina Wildlife Federation CEO Tim Gestwicki said the report supports the group’s position that shrimp trawling should be banned in the state’s juvenile fish nurseries. The NC Wildlife Federation advocates for groups including conservationists, wildlife enthusiasts, hunters and anglers.

While it does not examine shrimp trawling, the report’s findings on habitat degradation and management practices “align with what we know about this destructive practice,” Gestwicki said.

Goals of the study lawmakers funded

In 2021, the General Assembly sent $1 million to the NC Collaboratory to study the state’s coastal and marine fisheries and develop policy recommendations for managing the fisheries. Established in 2016 by the General Assembly, the collaboratory, based at UNC-Chapel Hill, uses and disseminates research expertise across the UNC System for use by state and local governments.

UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State, East Carolina University and UNC Wilmington researchers spent years studying 13 species, including the health and extent of their habitats, by reviewing existing fisheries and environmental data and management practices.

In a letter attached to the summary report, released June 30, NC Collaboratory Executive Director Jeffrey Warren stressed that no legislative influence or pressure affected the study’s work or results.

Legislators’ statements claiming that state senators who introduced the shrimp trawling ban knew about the study’s content before it was released “remain untrue and undermine the credibility of this multi-year research study,” the letter states.

Report released weeks after ‘Shrimpgate’

The study’s release comes weeks after a short-notice amendment to a fishing-related bill stunned commercial fishermen, their advocates and some lawmakers. The amendment, which had Democratic and Republican support in the Senate, sought a ban on shrimping, which advocates said killed too many finfish as bycatch and did more environmental harm.

Republican Sen. Bobby Hanig, who represents 10 coastal counties, opposed the ban passionately. One reason for the sudden move, he argued, was that some Senate leaders knew what the NC Collaboratory’s study showed.

But state lawmakers were not alone in advocating for additional restrictions on commercial shrimpers.

The Coastal Conservation Association, which represents conservationists and recreational anglers, has sued North Carolina for failing to protect state-managed waters from overfishing and undue bycatch and ensure citizens’ rights to fish in those waters.

And the NC Wildlife Federation publicly supported the trawling ban as a way to preserve juvenile fish populations.

“Why would you not wait until the study came out before you made such a drastic measure?” Hanig said in a June 25 phone interview. “The reason for that is plain and simple, is, when the study came out, it was going to show that the narrative that organizations like the CCA and the Wildlife Federation that they’ve been peddling for the last 10 years was not true.

“They wanted to get this law put into place before that. Otherwise, they would have no chance to get it across the finish line.”

The bill was roundly approved in the Senate but was not taken up by the House ahead of an extended summer break, causing celebrations among commercial fishermen and shrimpers who rushed to Raleigh that week to oppose the surprise ban proposal.