WANCHESE, N.C.
Outer Banks watermen have joined their peers from New England and New York in voicing complaints about what they say are excessive fines and overzealous enforcement practices by federal fisheries agents.
About 20 watermen gave interviews over two days last week with a team of government investigators, said Sean McKeon, president of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, a commercial fishing lobbying group.
"It's an opportunity for us to get on the record with the proper agencies the abuses that the industry has been subject to for many, many years," he said. "When they overreach, when people are treated like common criminals - which we believe they are - something needs to be done."
McKeon said enforcement agents with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Marine Fisheries Service - usually called NOAA Fisheries - have intimidated, threatened, bullied, harassed and overtaxed numerous watermen, who fish in Outer Banks waters.
The state's congressional delegation requested the U.S. inspector general's review of the enforcement practices. Elected officials in Massachusetts and other Northern states also asked for the investigation.
NOAA Fisheries employs 34 special agents in the Southeast region, stretching from the Virginia-North Carolina line to Florida, the Gulf Coast and the Caribbean, said Tracy Dunn, deputy special agent in charge of the area.
Similar to the operation of the FBI, the fisheries agents enforce all the laws for NOAA in state and federal waters.
"We are criminal investigators investigating federal marine resource crimes," Dunn said. "It can be both civil or criminal."
North Carolina is the only state in the region that NOAA does not have a joint enforcement agreement with, he said,
Lawmakers wrote a letter to NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco requesting that she review the appeals process for alleged fisheries violations. The June 25 letter cited a 2008 Baltimore Sun investigation that found that, over eight years, prosecutors had a 97 percent success rate over mariners.
Jeffrey Aiken, owner of Jeffrey's Seafood in Hatteras village, said that he, his corporation and a fisherman on his boat were charged with shark finning violations. Aiken denies the 2002 allegations but said he did not receive notice of the violation until 2006.
The charges resulted in fines that totaled $98,500, Aiken said. Eventually, he agreed to pay NOAA $30,000, without admitting any guilt, and the fisherman had agreed to pay $15,000.
"I settled mine because I couldn't afford to keep paying the lawyers, and they have all the cards. They just beat you down until you're ready to settle."
Aiken said: "It was obvious I wouldn't win. It's a kangaroo court where they're the judge and the jury."
NOAA officials declined to comment Friday, noting that the North Carolina watermen are a part of an ongoing investigation.
Others complained that NOAA fisheries regulations are too rigid and leave little room for complex situations.
In order to be fair, a violation issued to Tilman Gray, an Avon waterman, in March 2007 should have been a mere warning, he said.
Two of Gray's boats had been fishing for smooth sharks, he said, but caught some spotted ones. The watermen believed that the law allowed them to keep the fish, but they didn't realize the regulations had just changed.
"We were so confident we were right, we said, 'Bring 'em in,' " he said. "It was just ignorance of the law."
Even with the Coast Guard supporting Gray, the NOAA agent fined one boat $2,200 and the other $4,500.
"He just threw his chest out," Gray said. "He knew he had power."
Worse than the fines, he said, the agent confiscated and kept for weeks his GPS that had the plots of 350 wrecks on it - information he said took him 20 years to gather. The data are worth a potential $350,000 a year in wreck fishing income, Gray said.
He said the agents are also known for allowing the violations to continue before issuing "a zillion charges and a zillion dollars in fines."
"That would be like a state highway patrol trooper following a car for 10 years," he said. "It's entrapment. Deterrence is the best type of enforcement, and they just don't exercise it."
After North Carolina, investigators plan to travel to Long Island, N.Y., said Lisa Allen, chief of staff for the Office of Inspector General.
Investigators, who work independently from the agency, have already conducted interviews in Massachusetts. So far, she said, no other states have contacted the office.
"We'll go where the information leads us," she said.
Allen said she doesn't know when a report on the investigation will be ready.
"There's no schedule at this time," she said. "We're going to try and get this done as quickly as we can."
Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com
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Watermen are thieves.
I agree with Mr. Wizard. Rapers of the bay around here. It's a public resource that they have exploited. Try and take your son out to catch a dozen crabs with chicken necks. Can't be done. You will sit there in your boat staring at crab pot buoys as far as the eye can see. They litter the water like pollution and an eyesore. Try and go catch a legal flounder. Minimum sixe restriction is at 19 inches. That is ridiculous. Go in to a fish market and buy flounder. It will be much smaller than a 19 inch fish. I have no sympathy for watermen. Many that I know are just plain thieves that could care less about the law or rules. Take what you want is their motto.
You have no idea what you're talking about
Those who buy flounder under the limit have no one to blame but themselves for buying imported fish . . . and the size limit (which depends on the type of flounder as well) is not 19 inches, unless the DMF website is out of date. I simply do not understand why we want to export this difficult issue to other countries where there are little or no regulations protecting the stock. Fish is healthy, it will be eaten by the American public. Why not take it from a source where we know what we're getting?
The truth is, if we really cared about the fish, we would not be eating seafood that is imported . . . more than 80 percent is coming from somewhere else which also means more gas, more energy, more pollution than expended to bring us a local catch.
In all my years, I've never once been fishing or crabbing without catching something . . . except when tourists have "baited" the water for some unknown reason.
Those of you who think that the fishing industry is single handedly destroying fisheries have no idea what you're talking about. Fisheries have been managed for many, many years now and for the most part, that management is working. Fishermen comply with the rules. If they di
You are mistaken....
I never said I was buying flounder much less imported flounder. What is the DMF? I have never heard of it. The VMRC site has regulations. Nineteen inch minimum for me and the commercial size restriction is 14 inches. That makes no sense to me. If you want to talk about imported fish it gets back to the same thing. We wouldn't import fish if we had lots of fish here. When flounder exit the bay in the fall they are trawled to death on their way out. Tourists baiting water?? What is that? Never heard of that either.
proving my point
Haha, well first of all, dealers are also licensed to buy seafood so if you are coming across undersized fish in at a dealer, it is not from North Carolina. DMF is the Division of Marine Fisheries. They make and enforce N.C. fishing regulations. Each state has it's own regulations and some fisheries are regulated by multiple states and then there are federal regulations . . . so whatever the VMRC may say about flounder it doesn't necessarily apply to North Carolina, which is what this article was about.
Seafood is imported for the same reason goods are imported. It is cheaper. Do you know the stock status of flounder? Shrimp? Red drum? People who really care about the environment but locally produced goods. There is no two ways about it.
And finally, baiting the water is when you literally put bait in the water. With some species, you do it to attract them to your line/net/gear. Like sharks, you chum for sharks. But you should not bait for crabs, it's not necessary. But all that being said. Maybe you realy have all the environmental problems you related in Virginia but they aren't in North Carolina and certainly not in Dare County. And again, this article is relat
Way of Thinking
The mindset here needs to change.
Watermen, along with pollution, have DESTROYED their own golden goose.
They think the fisheries belong exclusively to them to exploit because they bought a license. They also try to get around catch laws. It's about time the officials cracked down on these rapers. That's why the so called watermen are screaming. They have decimated fishing stocks along the east coast and finally somebody is trying to do something about that.
These few dozen watermen need to get educations and find a job where they don't kill an industry. No more depleting a finite resource.
You hit it on the head Mr. Wizard. . .
The sense of entitlement these watermen have to destroy the biological balance of the ecosystem is insane, and it's absolutely wrong. They seriously need to find other careers where over-exploitation of dwindling natural resources is not how you earn your paycheck.
do you know any watermen?
hmm?
Fishermen plundered the waters until ...
a heavy hand intervened. Casting a line,a net brought men bounty for which they had not labored. Facing the extinction of species,Fishermen became seen as profiteers whose livelihoods depended on free collection of fish and whose focus had evolved into wholesale stripping-the-seas of their populations. Slowing them voluntarily was impossible and heavy handed measures became the only way to rescue from extinction species of marine life threatened by " factory " fishing-harvesting efficiencies.