Rule change outrages fishermen

A federal regulation is quietly altered, threatening the state's deep-water fishing community

HATTERAS VILLAGE -- A line of fishing boats stood empty one recent sunny morning at the dock of one of Hatteras Village's last fish houses, each vessel swaying gently on the swells of the Pamlico Sound, moored for want of work.

No one can say what will happen to the boats.

Men such as Jeff Oden, who has fished here 25 years and spends most of his time more than 30 miles offshore, are outraged at new federal regulations they think will decimate the village's fishing community.

"It's a railroad job," Oden said. "It's a heritage lost."

Oden, 54, remains one of the last fishermen in one of North Carolina's oldest fishing communities who still hunt a deep-water fish called snowy grouper.

A regulation being developed in Washington this fall - the latest in a series of federal responses to overfishing - will effectively cut off the grouper from Oden and other deep-water fishermen.

This time, though, with the alteration of two paragraphs in a 600-page document, commercial fishermen think they finally have justification for their suspicion that the federal government is against them and is, slowly, destroying a way of life.

Federal officials say the change was innocuous, and done through an open process.

The fishermen aren't buying it.

"It's corruption," said Tilman Gray, owner of the fish house, Avon Seafood, and a descendant of two centuries of family fishing history on the Outer Banks. "When people change documents, it's corruption."

Their outrage has echoed to Washington, where a congressman is calling for an investigation and federal staffers are learning that North Carolina is considering its legal options.

"There's no question these are difficult decisions and difficult management measures to put in place," said Roy Crabtree, director of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, a federal advisory panel which approved the new rules. Crabtree and environmental groups that monitor the ocean's fisheries say the snowy grouper is in trouble. The regulations, they say, are needed to keep fishing viable.

"There are some fishing vessels, some guys, that may not be able to keep going," said Caroline Keicher, a regional organizer for the national Marine Fish Conservation Network, a nonprofit group. "Yes, it's a hardship. But you can't disregard the fact that the fish need to be managed responsibly."

New rules

The new rules would affect a subset of fishermen throughout North Carolina, including those who hunt for vermillion snapper and black sea bass. But perhaps no group will be hit as hard as the snowy grouper fishermen who make their living out of Hatteras.

Gray and the other fishermen usually go out overnight, dropping baited lines 600 feet into the Atlantic. When he pulls fish from such depths, they're usually dead, their gills blown out by the sudden pressure change. Up come snowy grouper, a delicate whitefish worth up to $3.50 a pound. Up come amberjack and tilefish - less valuable, but saleable.

Oden caught 1,000 pounds on a recent day. The next day, he couldn't catch a bite.

"I'm in agreement that snowy grouper needs help. No problem there," Oden said. But he favors more lenient rules.

The rule - known as Amendment 13C - would eventually prohibit fishermen from catching more than 100 pounds of snowy grouper per trip. That could mean just three or four fish - down from a current trip limit of 2,500 pounds.

The regulations come from the federal law that governs commercial fishing, the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Congress is debating renewing the act for another 10 years. Proponents hope to pass it in November. The law has one central goal: preserve the ocean's ecosystem.