Shrimping issue is tangled among bureaucratic tentacles

Who knew shrimp trawling could get so complicated? It seems that deciding where to harvest shrimp in North Carolina is fraught with “too many cooks in the kitchen.”

 

The topic of shrimp trawling popped up in late June at the General Assembly in Raleigh when the state Senate voted to prohibit shrimp trawling within inshore waters and send the shrimp boats out to sea…requiring them to keep their distance – a half-mile out from shore.

 

Shrimpers felt they were targets of a direct and brutal assault by certain lawmakers who wanted to cripple and destroy the industry.

 

Indeed, the shrimping families were ambushed by a gaggle of politicians who sneakily rammed through anti-trawling legislative amendments – a deceptive power play that came from foul territory far beyond left field.

Fortunately, the Republican leadership in the state House of Representatives chucked the amendments overboard, refusing to consider the measure. For now.

Confusion clouded the entire situation, but two sources were especially critical of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC), an agency of state government, which waded into the fray and took sides in support of the shrimp trawling ban.

 

It was revealed in the June 23 issue of the Carolina Journal, published in Raleigh, that the NCWRC sent an email to more than 1.5 million North Carolina fishing license holders that advocated the shrimp trawling ban. Recipients of the email were encouraged to contact their home legislators, urging them to support the ban.

Nelson Paul, who owns a real estate business based in the Morrisville, N.C., area, is a Carteret County native with a family heritage that is directly tied to commercial fishing. He authored the Carolina Journal article and remarked: “The email was received like soaking a fresh wound in a gallon of alcohol.”

 

Paul effectively blew the whistle on “a state agency using state resources to push a blatantly political position.”

Similarly, an editorial in the June 25 edition of the Carteret County News-Times asserted that the Wildlife Resources Commission’s email “crossed legislative and jurisdictional boundaries that should cause immediate reaction from the legislature.”

By promoting legislation, “the commission, which is financed by taxpayers, engaged in an action…that is questionable, unethical and possibly illegal,” the News-Times editorialist commented.

Furthermore, the NCWRC should mind its own business and stay out of the shrimp trawling debate, the News-Times declared. “The NCWRC…has jurisdiction over all the wildlife resources on land and inland waters but not saltwater habitats.”

“Saltwater habitats fall under the jurisdiction of the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries (NCDMF), which takes into consideration both inland and ocean fisheries in coordination with the federal government through the National Marine Fisheries Service,” according to the News-Times.

 

“Both Wildlife Resources and Marine Fisheries have had to compromise on areas of brackish water, half salt and half fresh, where some fish species spawn. But in the main, any issue regarding the protection and management of saltwater resources, shellfish, finfish and crustaceans, which includes shrimp, is the responsibility of Marine Fisheries, not Wildlife Resources.”

The stakes are high. The News-Times noted that shrimping has been “an economic mainstay for hundreds of coastal communities for more than 300 years and is the state’s second largest fishery, behind the blue crab fishery.”

“The harm goes beyond just the direct economic and cultural impact caused by the potential destruction of a major state industry; it also harms the public by denying access to a valuable food source – local, wild caught, North Carolina shrimp.”

 

Nelson Paul said he thinks the NCWRC’s meddling in the shrimping business may be the tip of the iceberg. That’s worth exploring further.