State's [NC} fishermen finally gain quota
BY SUSAN WEST | SENTINEL STAFF
North Carolina commercial fishermen will be allowed to harvest spiny dogfish this winter after a seven-year stretch that saw the fishery mostly closed to fishermen here.
In October, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the regional group responsible for dogfish management, allocated 16 percent of the total east coast quota specifically to North Carolina. Tar Heel fishermen will be able to land 1.270 million pounds of spiny dogfish this winter.
"That percentage is right in line with North Carolina's historical landings in the fishery," said Dewey Hemilright, a commercial fisherman and member of the Dare County Commission for Working Watermen.
Only landings in Massachusetts bettered dogfish landings in North Carolina through the 1990s.
But under an Atlantic States management plan developed in 2002, North Carolina fell to fifth place in landings.
Part of the problem for North Carolina fishermen was simple biology - by the time dogfish migrated to the waters off the state, fishermen in more northern states had landed much, if not all, of the east coast quota.
The collapse of dogfish processing facilities and markets compounded the problem. At one time a processing facility in Gloucester, Va. handled dogfish from the Outer Banks, but that facility and many others folded under the instability of small quotas and closed fishing seasons.
"When a fishery is shut down, you lose all the infrastructure and the markets, and you pretty much have to start all over again," explained Mikey Daniels at Wanchese Fish Company.
With a landings quota in place for the state this winter, Wanchese Fish Company now is developing a dogfish processing facility at their Roanoke Island location.
"We've been meeting to discuss how to set this up right so that we get all the benefit we can for Dare County and for North Carolina," Daniels said.
He said the facility probably would hire 10 or 11 workers to process the fish.
"It's skilled work, the cutting is done by hand, not by machine, so training will be necessary," Daniels explained.
He said fishermen should receive a higher price for dogfish because the fish won't have to be trucked to cutting houses in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
After processing, the fish would be shipped to Europe or stored frozen at the company's plant in Suffolk, Virginia.
A flourishing export market was developed in the early 1990s, with the assistance of the National Marine Fisheries Service, which encouraged commercial fishermen to target what the agency called an "underutilized species."
The part of the fish called the back is sent to France, Italy, the Netherlands, and England where it is called rock salmon or grey fish and used in fish and chips.
Belly flaps go to France or Germany for schillerlocken, a popular cured bar-food.
Fins and tails are sent to places like China and Tawain.
Daniels said Americans never developed an appetite for dogfish.
"But that's something that we might want to reconsider. These fish are an inexpensive source of protein," he said.
Louis Daniel, chief of marine fisheries in North Carolina, said the spiny dogfish season would probably open Jan. 1, 2009.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission also increased the east coast dogfish quota to 12 million pounds for the 2009/2010 fishing year and approved a 16 percent share for North Carolina. The latest information shows that the spawning stock biomass exceeds the target goal identified in the management plan.
Fishermen and state managers have argued for a state quota for spiny dogfish for several years.
But the issue did not pick up much traction until the Dare County Commission for Working Watermen identified the issue as a priority shortly after the group was created in May.
US Senators Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr, US Representative Walter Jones, NC Senator Marc Basnight, as well as county and town boards, formally endorsed the idea in letters to the Atlantic States commission earlier this fall.
Dare County Commissioner Mike Johnson serves as chairman of the county Commission for Working Watermen. Johnson also stepped into his new role as proxy for NC Representative William Wainwright on the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission at the October meeting.
