Amendment 2 developed to meet statutory requirements to end over fishing and achieve sustainable harvest

The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries developed Amendment 2 to the N.C. Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan to meet the statutory requirements to specify a time period not to exceed two years from the date of adoption of the amendment to end overfishing and a time period not to exceed 10 years from the date of adoption of the amendment for achieving a sustainable harvest.

The goal of Amendment 2 is to manage the southern flounder fishery to achieve a self-sustaining population that provides sustainable harvest using science-based decision-making processes. There were four objectives used to achieve this goal:

1. Implement management strategies within North Carolina and encourage interjurisdictional management strategies that maintain and restore the southern flounder spawning stock with multiple cohorts and adequate abundance to prevent recruitment overfishing;
2. Restore, enhance, and protect habitat and environmental quality necessary to maintain or increase growth, survival, and reproduction of the southern flounder population;
3. Use biological, environmental, habitat, fishery, social, and economic data needed to effectively monitor and manage the southern flounder fishery and its ecosystem impacts;
4. Promote stewardship of the resource through increased public awareness and interjurisdictional cooperation throughout the species’ range regarding the status and management of the southern flounder fishery, including practices that minimize bycatch and discard mortality.

In concurrence with the incorporated actions from Amendment 1 and Supplement A to Amendment 1 as modified by the Aug. 17, 2017 settlement agreement, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality and the Division of Marine Fisheries recommended a management strategy be implemented in Amendment 2 to reduce fishing mortality in the commercial and recreational fisheries to a level that ends overfishing within two years and allows the spawning stock biomass (the number of female fish that are mature or capable of producing offspring) to increase between the spawning stock biomass threshold and the spawning stock biomass target within 10 years via a 62% reduction in total removals in 2019 and via a 72% reduction in total removals beginning in 2020.

Management measures approved by the Marine Fisheries Commission to implement the strategy from Amendment 2 include:

• Dividing the commercial fishery into three commercial southern flounder management areas with unique harvest seasons;
• Identifying harvest seasons for the recreational hook-and-line fishery;
• Removing all commercial gears targeting southern flounder from the water (commercial and Recreational Commercial Gear License anchored large mesh gill nets and gigs) or making them inoperable (flounder pound nets) in areas and during times outside of the seasons implemented.

Additionally, to minimize the likelihood of creating derby fisheries and to make a seasonal closure more effective in constraining harvest to the anticipated levels, Amendment 2 reduces commercial anchored large-mesh gill net soak times in previously exempted areas of the state and reduces the maximum yardage allowed in the commercial anchored large-mesh gill net fishery by 25% for each management unit.

Amendment 2 management strategies were implemented through proclamations effective Sept. 4, 2019 with additional proclamations opening the fisheries issued at later dates. The approved strategies are intended to be for the short-term, but will remain in place until Amendment 3 is approved by the Marine Fisheries Commission sometime in 2021.

The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality and the Division of Marine Fisheries recognize that these reductions are significant but necessary to increase the probability of successfully rebuilding this important recreational and commercial resource.