Background on Tommy

      Tommy Lewis started working part time on the boat in the summertime when he was 12 years old. When he was 18 he started commercial fishing full time. He got into the business because his grandfather was a part time commercial fisherman, and his father and two brother in-laws and an uncle were also in the business.  Tommy used to work on the Charles D. Smith. When he started working he used to fish and shrimp in the Core and Pamlico Sounds, but since the lack of seafood he has been forced to work farther upstate near New Jersey. One of Tommy’s unforgettable memories was in 1974 when he was out on the boat and they caught over 10,000lbs of shrimp, but the thing was he was only 12yrs old so he was asleep while all of this was going on!!!!!!

 Background Information on Issue

North Carolina is the 4^th largest fleet in the world, and over 170,000 commercial fishermen on large, medium, and small vessels. Commercial fishermen were intricate in the development of Turtle Excluder Devices in the late 1980's and early 1990's, which are required to protect various endangered species of turtles. Later, when concerns over the unintended catches of porpoises and other untargeted species arose, fishermen responded with equal fervor to assist in the creation of BRDs, which were required by law in 1997. Fishermen continue to work closely, rigorously, and endlessly on by catch reduction studies with management, Due to their size, marine animals like sea turtles are caught as by catch frequently. Also considered by catch are economically unimportant but ecologically important life like starfish, sponges and skates. Even fish of the target species, but undesired sex, size or quality are often discarded as by catch. In North Carolina there is only 7,307 full-time commercial fishermen and there is 2.5 acres of estuarine waters. The top three seafood’s caught in N.C is bluecrab, shrimp and flounder. There are 39 major fish stocks and they are mostly in Carteret County.

Solutions

Some ways to help the commercial fishing industry would be for the government to help them like the way they help the farmers buy there equipment and help buy the gas needed to do the jobs they do, like trawling and going out of state for weeks at a time with gas prices to high and its costing more to produce the seafood than it is to sell it.

Other ways to help would be to open more of the estuaries for the fishermen to be able to fish and shrimp there.  If it would be possible to have smaller shrimp boats that use less gas to run but still would be able to catch the same amount of seafood would also help out the business.