A bill before the North Carolina Legislature would ban shrimp trawling in inshore waters, including the Inner Banks and sounds. Supporters argue that a ban would allow other fish species to thrive in the Pamlico Sound, which would be a boon to recreational fishermen from across the state, but opponents say the trawling ban would destroy the shrimp business. Richard Newman is president of the North Carolina Blue Crab Association, and he tells SFN it would be devastating.

“It would completely kill the shrimp industry. I don’t I don’t feel like it would help any other part of the commercial fishing industry. I don’t think it would help the crabs. I don’t think it would help oyster or fish.”

Dee Lupton, a former deputy director of the State Division of Marine Fisheries, told reporters the industry is already heavily regulated by the state.

“We have the 1997 Fisheries Reform Act. The state requires the adoption of fishery management plans. Those plans are for all commercially and recreationally significant fisheries. This is the law. So the state has to manage these fisheries. There’s not a choice. It’s already a law on the books, and in those plans, it includes conservation and management measures that will provide the greatest overall benefit to the state, particularly with the respect of food production, recreational opportunities and protection of marine ecosystems.”

Representative Pricey Harrison, a Democrat from Greensboro, spoke out against the ban and says there’s a lot of misinformation about the measure.

“I hear this from my colleagues who say this is a great bill, that we’re the only state that allows inshore trawling. That’s not true. Other states have implemented and restored it, including South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, but it’s actually wrong to compare us to other coastal states, because we’ve got more estuarine acreage than any other state in the United States. And I think that that is an important point that the scientists at Duke and Carolina kept enforcing to me, as this is emphasizing to me, because this is what distinguishes us from other states.”

Newman echoes Harrison’s statement.

“North Carolina has about two, a little over 2 million acres of estuary waters, and about half of that is already closed.”

A protest at the legislature on Tuesday was organized by groups including NC Catch and North Carolina Waterman United, a group that advocates for coastal communities.