MFC Meeting This Week
The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC) meets this week in Beaufort for their May quarterly meeting. The public is invited and can give public comment either Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. Written public comment can also be submitted at the link below (written comment deadline is today at 4:00pm).
Meeting Location:
Beaufort Hotel at 2440 Lennoxville Road Beaufort, NC 28516
Meeting Times:
Wednesday May 21st, 6:00pm – until
Thursday May 22nd, 9:00am – 5:00pm
Friday May 23rd, 9:00am – 11:45am
Final Action Items
Eastern Oyster – final vote is scheduled to close large areas at the mouth of the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers to mechanical dredging. This closure has no stock assessment to support it, no plans for monitoring, no plans for reopening, and no permits to enhance the area. Yet they are steamrolling ahead to close more access to one user group.
Hard Clam – final vote scheduled to phase out mechanical clamming in NC. The DMF once said we had too many people participating in this fishery and there was potential for ecological impact. So now that this fishery (and many others) are down to the last 2-3 participants they claim there is not enough participation to justify keeping it open! We moved all of the mechanical clamming where they wanted it, reduced our chances of ecological impact, and are down to the last few mechanical clammers. Yet they still want to eliminate access to one user group.
Other Fishery Management Plans
Blue Crab – Division staff will be giving an update on the Blue Crab Adaptive Management process. No vote is scheduled to be taken at this meeting.
As of now, the DMF has not changed their preliminary recommendations of a 10-bushel mature female crab limit June-December, no mature females January-May, but the document says, “Because there are strong indicators the stock is not recovering, the DMF remains concerned about the blue crab stock…. [the DMF will] re-evaluate the preliminary recommendations and continue to explore additional management options. At the August 2025 meeting, the division will present additional options accounting for public and advisory committee input.”
With a failed stock assessment and less than adequate sampling procedures the DMF is still using reduction calculations from a table that is almost ten years out of date. More evidence of how broken this process is.
Estuarine Striped Bass – Division staff will be presenting background information on determining whether or not the Central Southern Management Area (CSMA) striped bass population is self-sustaining and their analysis of the effectiveness of the ferry line gill net closures at increasing striped bass abundance. There is no vote scheduled at this meeting but staff is scheduled to present their final analysis and recommendations at the August 2025 meeting.
Striped Bass Decision Document
Southern Flounder – Division staff will provide the MFC with public comments and AC recommendations on early reallocation of South Flounder quota to “increase recreational access”. Of course there is no consideration of increasing commercial access or increasing consumer availability of fresh local seafood. Why would there be? The only options these two groups are ever presented with are suffering and lost access from this group of bureaucrats!
The MFC will select their preferred management option on this issue at this meeting. If the MFC votes to go ahead with early reallocation the decision will be sent for DEQ Secretary and legislative review before the final vote is held at the August 2025 meeting.
DMF staff will also give an update on and continue work on Amendment 5.
Southern Flounder Amendment 5 Memo
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please reach out.
Thomas Newman
Fisheries Liaison
