Tight budget affects work at N.C. division of fisheries

By Connie Sage

Correspondent

State budget constraints have halted field survey work by the Division of Marine Fisheries, potentially jeopardizing data collection at the height of the herring spawning season.

At the same time, multiple Marine Fisheries committee meetings have been canceled for economic reasons, including a two-day session scheduled for Kitty Hawk next month.

Gov. Bev Perdue this month instructed state offices to stop buying goods and services and to cease all travel not approved for public safety, public health or economic development.

Fisheries has stopped its field work surveying various fish species, said Sara Wins-low, the division's Northern District manager in Elizabeth City.

"The projects we do are very critical right now because we're in the middle of the spawning season," she said.

With up to 30 years of tabulated statistics, there could be a hole in long-term data sets because of the directive, which "essentially jeopardizes comparisons with previous years," Winslow said.

Nearly two dozen biologists in the district's Elizabeth City, Manteo and Columbia offices study the abundance of striped bass, herring, white and yellow perch, catfish, blue crabs and flounder, along with performing other field work.

"We sample from February to mid-May, but the prime spawning season for blueback herring is right now," Winslow said.

Fisheries biologists, including 13 from the Elizabeth City office, are now working at their desks doing data analysis and other office work, Wins-low said.

Meetings of the Finfish Advisory Committee and the Spotted Seatrout Fishery Management Plan Advisory Committee, along with the Northeast, Central and Southeast regional advisory committees planned for this month in the Outer Banks, New Bern and

Wilmington, have been dropped, at least until the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

"We were talking about interim rules for a flounder fisheries management plan," said Patricia Smith, public information officer for fisheries. "Either we'll have to come up with another way to discuss it" or the rules will be delayed, she said.

State fisheries officials in some cases are holding conference calls in lieu of meetings, including substituting a day-long call in place of the two-day joint Marine Fisheries and Wildlife Resources session that had been planned for May 27 to 29 at the Hilton Garden Inn at Kitty Hawk.

"It's very important that we meet," said Mikey Daniels of Wanchese, a commercial fisherma n and a member of the Marine Fisheries commission. "I can't even imagine trying to do that by phone. You can't see anybody. You can't half hear."

The Northeast committee meeting was to have been the first for Ernie Knighton of Edenton, a recreational fisherman and a member of the committee.

"If issues concerning fisheries are not addressed, we're not going to have any fish," he said.

Knighton said he is particularly concerned about the state's flounder catch, which he said has been slowly dropping.

"These things need to be discussed and the best solutions brought forth for the state," he said. "They certainly need to have the meetings and hear from the people who they've appointed to the committees, both for recreational and commercial fishing."

Without the on-site meetings, fishermen will lose an avenue for public comment, said Kelly Schoolcraft of Frisco, a Northeast committee member and commercial fisherman.

Smith said the state can't reimburse committee members for travel expenses. But that's OK with Daniels and Knighton, who said they don't need to be compensated.

Daniels said he has asked to meet at Marine Fisheries' main office in Morehead City. Not everyone may be able to attend, he said, "but at least you'd have a quorum."