. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. For more than a decade, declining fish stocks, along with increasing regulations, global competition, fuel and maintenance costs, user conflicts, storms, coastal development and closures of polluted harvesting grounds have buffeted the commercial fishing industry. Surveys by the Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) show few are getting rich through commercial fishing. Only 6 percent earned more than $30,000 annually; 26 percent earned between $15,001 and $30,000; 26 percent earned between $5,001 and $15
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. For more than a decade, declining fish stocks, along with increasing regulations, global competition, fuel and maintenance costs, user conflicts, storms, coastal development and closures of polluted harvesting grounds have buffeted the commercial fishing industry. Surveys by the Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) show few are getting rich through commercial fishing. Only 6 percent earned more than $30,000 annually; 26 percent earned between $15,001 and $30,000; 26 percent earned between $5,001 and $15,000; 31 percent earned from $1 to $5,000; and 11 percent reported $0 or lost income. Once the pillars of North Carolina's coastal economies, now 70 percent of commercial fishers hold land-based jobs to help make ends meet. taught in the middle While the number of commercial fishing licenses has not declined significantly, fewer license holders are fishing full time today than in 1999, when the state adopted a new licensing system, according to DMF data. That doesn't surprise Billy Carl Tillett, a fifth-generation waterman from Wanchese. "It's because of the uncertain future. Fish haven't changed. The weather hasn't changed. They both run in cycles. What has changed is the number of regulations," says Tillett, who moved off the water in 1989 to help run the family's fish-packing house. "We can live with size limits or net regulations. But when it comes to quotas and the number of days any given fishery season is open, that's another story," says Tillett, chairman of the North Carolina Fisheries Association (NCFA), a trade organization representing the commercial fishing industry. "It's simple economics. If you don't catch it, you don't get paid," he says. Much of the industry's resentment is aimed at the layers of rules that govern when and where certain finfish or shellfish may be harvested. Regulations also spell out gear requirements or restrict
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcollectionunclibra, booksubjectoceanography
