Beware: North Carolina is allowing its fish population to collapse | Opinion

Written by Tim Gestwicki, NCWF CEO,
Published in The News & Observer

The Fisheries Reform Act of 1997 (“FRA”) was enacted to rebuild our depleted marine fisheries. In the 29 years since, North Carolina hasn’t rebuilt a single coastal fishery. In fact, every stock managed under the FRA has declined further. From where I sit, the biggest challenge facing conservation in North Carolina is the blatant mismanagement, abuse, and waste of our fisheries by state government.

Closing arguments in a landmark lawsuit that could force the state to finally accept responsibility for that reality concluded last month. Every North Carolinian who has ever fished our sounds, eaten our seafood, or simply valued what our coast means to the state should be paying attention.

This lawsuit resurfaced issues that North Carolina Wildlife Federation (NCWF) has been emphasizing for more than a decade. NCWF is an organization that brings together scientists, conservationists, wildlife enthusiasts, hunters and anglers, government, and industry to protect North Carolina’s natural resources. I have been with the Federation since the early 1990s and have served as CEO since 2009. In that time, I’ve seen many changes in our state’s natural resources – some good and some bad. For our marine resources, some are overwhelmingly negative.

NCWF is not a plaintiff in this lawsuit. We filed an amicus brief in support, however, because we believe the state has fundamentally failed in its duty to rebuild and manage our public trust resources. For years, we have offered common sense solutions, supported by science, including filing rulemaking petitions, supporting legislation that would allow priority species to spawn at least once before harvest, and encouraging efforts to remove destructive gear from our sounds. At every turn, the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries has worked against these basic tenets of sound fisheries management solutions. We have exhausted every available avenue of traditional advocacy, which is why this lawsuit matters.

The state of North Carolina is only responsible for managing 14 coastal fish stocks, species that were the backbone of our coastal ecology and economy, culture, and history. By scientific definition, a stock is considered "collapsed" if landings fall below 10% of historical highs. In the 30 years since the FRA became law, every stock has declined further. Our weakfish and southern flounder fisheries are all but gone. Other fisheries, including spot, croaker, and blue crab – once cornerstones of North Carolina’s fishing economy – have collapsed or are collapsing. These fisheries have declined by as much as 95% over the past three decades.

The mechanism of this collapse is no mystery to those paying attention. North Carolina remains the last state on the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts permitting large-scale estuarine shrimp trawling and gill nets in waters intended to function as a refuge for juvenile marine resources to mature and reproduce. The dominant catch in a shrimp trawl that operates in these critical nursery areas isn’t shrimp, it’s juvenile fish. Despite the use of bycatch reduction devices, many hundreds of millions of important juvenile fishes of collapsed stocks are lost and never contribute to the gene pool by reproducing. Allowing this continued practice in our well-designed – but unprotected – nursery grounds is a classic case of the tragedy of the commons and a precursor to ecosystem collapse.

Opposition to reform has been fierce and organized. However, the most prominent arguments against reform aren’t grounded in science. They are unsubstantiated anecdotes from a few interested parties with an economic stake in the outcome of reform. We observed that in the testimony provided during last month’s trial.

The trial concluded after five weeks of testimony. By next month, all legal filings will have been submitted to the judge for final ruling. All sworn case expert testimonies and state positions will soon become public record, allowing the world to learn what we’ve been working to correct for years.

North Carolina’s coastal fisheries are a public trust resource. They belong to every citizen of this state. The question before this court is whether the state has honored that trust. From my perspective, and that of the NCWF, after years of fighting and monitoring, the answer is clear. The fish in our sounds belong to the people of North Carolina. It’s time the state started acting like it.