North Carolina MFC Meeting This Week
The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC) meets this week.
February 18-19
(Wednesday-Thursday)
in
Kitty Hawk, NC
at
Hilton Garden Inn Outer Banks/Kitty Hawk
5353 N Virginia Dare Trail
Kitty Hawk, NC 27949
The meeting will also be live streamed on YouTube.
The first day is just for an evening public comment session and will be at 6:00pm. The second day will begin with another opportunity to provide public comment at 9:00am before business is discussed.
Bonito and Red Snapper are the two main species being discussed at this meeting. I have provided brief summaries and links to related documents below.
Red Drum and kingfishes (sea mullet) will also be discussed at this meeting as they are scheduled for upcoming Amendments to their fishery management plans (FMPs) but there are no supporting documents provided by the Division of Marine Fisheries to review.
Atlantic Bonito
For the past year, Marine Fisheries Commission discussions about Atlantic Bonito centered on the possibility of a 5-fish recreational bag limit — largely driven by concerns over social media photos. During those discussions, there was no stated desire to impose further commercial restrictions.
Now, the final rulemaking options go much further. All options except Status Quo would delegate broad proclamation authority to the Fisheries Director — including the ability to set commercial trip limits — with a single vote of the Commission.
There are:
- No defined biological triggers
- No management benchmarks
- No harvest thresholds
- No conservation targets
- No clear bounds on how or when that authority would be used
We do not have a stock assessment. We simply have a short issue paper summarizing limited available information. Monitoring landings more closely is a reasonable request.
Granting open-ended authority over both sectors without defined standards or prior public discussion is a significant procedural shift.
This isn’t just about a 5-fish bag limit. It’s about whether management authority expands without clearly defined need or transparent guardrails.
If management without causation concerns you — recreational, commercial, charter-for-hire, or simply as someone who values transparent process — this may be your only opportunity to speak before that authority is granted.
Atlantic Bonito Management Issue Paper
Red Snapper
The final draft of the North Carolina Exempted Fishing Permit (EFP) application to transfer recreational management of red snapper to the states has been submitted to the Federal Register for public comment. The NC EFP application will be presented and hopefully discussed at this meeting.
NCFA has been and will continue to follow the EFP application process at the state and federal levels. All the South Atlantic state’s EFP applications, including NC, have to be vetted and approved by NOAA Fisheries before any management changes to the red snapper fishery can be made. More information about the EFPs should be available after the 25 day federal public comment period.
NC Red Snapper EFP Application
Federal Register Notice of Receipt Request For Comments
If you have any questions, concerns, or comments please feel free to reach out.
Thomas Newman
Fisheries Liaison
