Turtle Concerns Close Pamlico Sound Waters
By Jannette Pippin, The Daily News, Jacksonville, N.C.
Nov. 15–MOREHEAD CITY — The flounder season will close early for some area fishermen due to measures to protect threatened and endangered sea turtles.
Waters in Pamlico Sound close today at 3 p.m. to the use of commercial large-mesh gill nets, the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries announced.
DMF Biologist Blake Price said the season would generally continue until Nov. 30, but the number of green sea turtles caught in flounder nets this season has neared the maximum number allowed by a special permit from the National Marine Fisheries Service.
“Due to an increase in interactions between sea turtles and large mesh gill nets, we’ve had to shut down operations a few days early,” Price said.
North Carolina manages the large-mesh gill net fishery in Pamlico Sound under a federal permit authorized by Section 10 of the Endangered Species Act, which went into effect after numerous sea turtle strandings in Pamlico Sound in 1999 and 2000, according to the division.
Investigations identified the deep-water, large-mesh gill net fishery for southern flounder as the primary source for the sea turtle interactions and subsequent mortalities.
The federal permit authorizes a limited shallow water fishery along the Outer Banks and mainland side of Pamlico Sound, Price said.
Permit requirements include observer coverage and weekly reporting of interactions with sea turtles.
At the time the closure was announced, DMF information indicated observers had documented large-mesh gill net interactions with 13 live and five dead green turtles. Using the documented interactions, scientists estimated there had been 119 live takes and 30 lethal takes of green sea turtles.
A closure is required when the estimated number of captures reaches 120 live or 48 dead green sea turtles.
“We’ve reached that threshold,” Price said.
Observes also documented a gill net interaction with one live loggerhead sea turtle, but the limit of takes of loggerheads is not nearing the limit, DMF said.
The closure does not prohibit the use of small-mesh gill nets smaller than or equal to 4 -inch stretched mesh. Observations of the small-mesh fishery will continue.
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