MANTEO, N.C. (WAVY) — Chef Alex Rodriguez at 1587 Restaurant tosses a handful of shrimp into a skillet with flair and flame, preparing a gumbo that will top a heaping mound of grits. But they’re not just any shrimp — they’re green-tails, harvested from nearby Pamlico Sound.
The shrimping industry permeates life on the Outer Banks, from the boats to the restaurant tables. That’s why House Bill 442 is causing so much concern.
The bill itself would have reestablished a recreational fishing season of no less than six weeks for flounder and red snapper — it has been a four-day season — but the North Carolina State Senate added a shrimp trawling ban for inland waters that would not allow it in the Sound or any inland waters. It would force shrimp trawling to be done out in ocean waters at least a half-mile offshore. The Senate also passed a bill that would bail out impacted shrimpers for the next three years.
HB-442-shrimp-trawlingDownload
Supporters of the ban argue the policy to be needed to help other fish species in the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuarine System and help recreational fishing in the region. State Senate leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) has said the inland trawling ban would align the state with such bans in Virginia and South Carolina.
Only four senators, all Republicans from coastal areas, voted against the bill, including Bobby Hanig, who represents much of northeastern North Carolina.
North Carolina Senate votes to pass ‘Shrimp on the Coast’ bill
The controversy here in the Outer Banks has become so heated that it’s earned a nickname — shrimpgate.
Britton Shackelford’s ancestors have worked on the waters of North Carolina and Virginia for hundreds of years.
“My youngest son shrimped on a big boat. My oldest son, he shrimps on his own boat,” he said Tuesday at Wanchese Harbor.
They are part of a rally in Raleigh trying to convince lawmakers to reverse course on the legislation. Governments along the coast of northeastern North Carolina, including those of Currituck CountyDare County and Hyde County, have expressed their opposition to the bill. The state Secretary of Agriculture, Steven Troxler, also issued a letter Monday expressing his opposition to the trawl ban amendment.
Local governments, fishermen speak out against bill limiting shrimp trawling
Shackelford said pushing Pamlico Sound shrimpers out to the ocean is “not even an option. You don’t have the gear, you don’t have the net. Just to be able to rig up to do that, it’s a bigger boat, a bigger net.”
Manteo chef Jill Thompson would be affected, too. “It’s not a big commercial shrimping structure here. It’s small families running small trawling boats with small nets. And that’s their livelihood. So I’m really worried for friends and family.”
Thompson said there’s not a replacement for the green-tail and brown shrimp that come out of the sound for taste and freshness.
“Just basically coast to table right here on your plate. They’re amazing. They taste like lobster. They’re absolutely delicious. And it would really, really affect the restaurants here and the chefs that serve them,” she said.
If fishermen, restaurants and chefs can’t get local shrimp, they say they’ll have to get it from the other side of the world, likely Southeast Asia, and quality will suffer.
“Less than half of 1% is even inspected,” Shackelford said. “There’s so little follow through that all they do is take it to the next port. Totally unregulated, no quality control.”
“We don’t know anything (about imported Asian shrimp),” Thompson said. “There’s very little known about the path of where these shrimp go before they come to our plate.”
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