THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 4, 1994 TAG: 9412040079
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
The Marine Fisheries Commission banned herring- and shad-fishing throughout the state during much of the year - a move that some Albemarle-area fishermen said Saturday would kill the state's oldest fishing industry.
The 9-7 vote will prohibit the taking of those fish from April 15 through Jan. 1, which is designed to reduce the herring catch by about 70 percent.
The action was approved after two hours of debate during which two previous votes to restrict the season failed when the commission tied 8-8. It was approved after Commissioner Jodie Gay, a commercial fisherman from Hampstead who first voted against the proposal, offered an alternative proposal that failed and then asked that the original vote be reconsidered.
``I don't think the pound net fishery on the Chowan River has gotten us to this point, but we have gotten to this point and I do think we need to do something about it or say goodbye to the river herring,'' Gay said.
The rule will take effect March 1.
``What the commission has done has essentially ended the pound net herring fishery on the Chowan River,'' said Scott Keefe, a commercial fisherman from Winfall. Keefe, 42, has fished the Chowan River for herring each spring for the last 13 years.
``A lot of the fishermen on the Chowan River are not even going to set their nets,'' said Keefe.
The commission votedafter hearing a report from Division of Marine Fisheries staff members that catches of river herring and American shad - valuable Albemarle-area fisheries - have plummeted in the last few decades in North Carolina and most of the herring that remain in the Albemarle-area are not reproducing.
Proponents of the action said it's time to do something about it.
``I deplore the human tragedy that will result from the closure of this fishery,'' said commission member Dirk Frankenberg, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ``But . . . when you reduce a fishery, the fish will come back.''
``We cannot afford to let this opportunity go by without taking this action,'' he said.
But opponents said state regulators are targeting the wrong people and the proposal will devastate the industry without any guarantee that it would improve herring stocks.
In an unusual move for him, Commission Chairman Robert V. Lucas voted against the conservation proposal. He said studies of the herring catch by fishermen in the state's inside waters showed that that fishery had not necessarily contributed to the herring's decline.
``I feel strongly that we need to protect the resource,'' said Lucas, who usually supports conservation measures. ``But before I make a mistake, I want to be sure of what I'm doing.''
River herring, also known as alewife, have been a significant part of the commercial fishing industry in northeastern North Carolina since the Colonial era, with landings peaking in the state in 1887 at 23.7 million pounds, according to the Division of Marine Fisheries.
In the last five years, the American shad catch has dropped by about 50 percent and during the last decade the river herring catch has dropped about 92 percent, but problems with the fisheries date back to the 1960s and 1970s.
During that time, the river herring was the target of foreign fishing fleets operating in the Atlantic Ocean. Efforts to move foreign fleets offshore helped the herring population, but the fishery has never rebounded to historic levels, possibly because of dam construction, loss of habitat, and water pollution and algae blooms on the Chowan River and elsewhere. .
Seafood dealer Linnie D. Perry II, who has an interest in the herring fishery, abstained from the votes and from debate on the proposal. by CNB