The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission is making plans to protect and preserve the southern flounder population off North Carolina’s coast, but its decision on how it will allocate the supply between recreational and commercial fishermen is causing people to get upset.
"The stock is in trouble, big trouble," said the chair of the commission, Rob Bizzell, "And we’re looking at an overall 72 percent reduction in the take, which is significant. Some people are scared that the stock is going to collapse, and when the stock collapses, there’s no hope for recovery. We’re trying to avoid that."
Other WRAL Top Stories
The commission is working on limiting the amount of the catch in a single season to around 500,000 fish. A recent vote by the commission to give the commercial industry approximately 70 percent of that supply and the recreational fishermen 30 percent of that supply is upsetting some.
"I got almost 900 letters of concern about the 30/70 allocation," Bizzell said. "And, you know, for every one letter you get, good gracious, probably 20 or 30 individuals who feel the same way, but just don’t take the effort to speak up."
The one thing that all involved agree on is that the Southern Flounder population is declining. The IUCN Red List of Endangered Species lists it as "near threatened." That designation is several steps away from endangered, but it is a red flag.
"If you took away flounder, first of all, you’d have the big impact on the human populations. There’d be no flounder to eat," says Joseph Luczkovich, a marine biologist and professor at East Carolina University. "It’d be a very different ecosystem."
The southern flounder season lasts 45 days in North Carolina — from August until September. According to data compiled by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, the estimated economic impact of the recreational fishing industry in North Carolina was $4 billion in 2019, compared to the commercial fishing industry’s estimated $500 million impact.
Seth Vernon is a full-time charter captain in Wilmington. A large portion of his business is comprised of recreational fishing.
"The flounder don’t belong to me, and they don’t belong to the commercial fishermen at any more allowable catch," said Vernon. "The entirety of our state’s waters are a public trust resource. What anglers like myself are fighting for is equity of that resource."
Meanwhile Bizzell has called for a special meeting on March 31 to revisit the commission’s vote on allocation.
"You know, there has been some buyer’s remorse," he says about the commission’s decision. "We’ve set the amount of resources that can be removed to allow for overfishing to end … so this is nothing about conservation. This is about fairness."