New Endangered Species Act Section 10 Incidental Take Permit issued by National Marine Fisheries Service for Sea Turtles and Sturgeon

The Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Marine Fisheries has received a new Endangered Species Act Section 10 Incidental Take Permit (ITP) from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The ITP authorizes a limited number of incidental takes of sea turtles and sturgeon in internal Coastal and Joint Fishing Waters for estuarine gill net fisheries with the exceptions of runaround/strike/drop and drift gill nets as described below:

• Run-around, strike, or drop gill nets - gill nets that are actively fished by either (1) using the boat to run a net around a school of fish, creating a closed circle, or (2) using the boat after the net is set to herd fish into the net without delay, whereby soak time does not exceed 30 minutes from the end of the set to the beginning of the haul.
• Drift gill nets - gill nets that are used to capture fish while being moved along by water currents whereby the net stays attached to the vessel from deployment through retrieval.

The new ITP is valid for Oct. 2, 2024, through Aug. 31, 2034. The ITP includes a Conservation Plan that outlines measures to monitor, avoid and minimize, and mitigate interactions with these species in gill net fisheries permitted by the ITP (non-exempted gill-net fisheries).

What has not changed:

1. Permit conditions require the Division to provide 7% to 10% observer coverage in the permitted large mesh gill net fishery and 1% to 2% observer coverage in the permitted small mesh gill net fishery in estuarine waters.
2. Restriction measures to avoid and minimize takes for gill nets set for flounder remain the same in Management Units B, D1, D2, and E.
3. Small-mesh gill net attendance requirements continue. 

What has changed:

1. Observer coverage requirements are for estimated fishing effort not the final actual fishing effort. The Division is required to provide an observer sea-day schedule and calculation rationale for estimating fishing effort in advance of each season to get NMFS concurrence. This approach means that if actual fishing effort is greater than estimated, the Division will remain in compliance as long as the original sea day schedule is fulfilled.
2. The new ITP defines large-mesh as 5 inches or greater stretched mesh and small-mesh as less than 5 inches stretched mesh.
3. Soak time restrictions were added in Management Units A and C for gill nets with a stretched mesh size of greater than 4 inches (includes large and small-mesh gill nets) set for flounder. Nets may be set no sooner than one hour before sunset and must be retrieved no later than one hour after sunrise for the days the fishery is open.
4. The ITP requires continuation of the area closure in the upper Cape Fear River that was first implemented in 2016.  
5. The boundary between Management Units B and D1 in Core Sound was moved north to the 35° 00.000’ N latitude line such that Core Sound will be wholly contained in Management Unit D1. Large-mesh gill nets for flounder will still be able to be set between 35° 00.000’N south to 34° 48.270’ N (now in the northern D1 subunit). Prohibition of this gear south of 34° 48.270’ N (now in the southern D1 subunit) between May 8 through Oct. 14 as required by the previous ITPs remains in effect.
6. Turnagain Bay is fully in Management Unit C instead of split between Management Units B and C.
7. The definitions of gears exempted from the ITP were updated. The revised definitions offer greater consistency with the descriptions of gear in the current ITPs and the ITP application, and are as follows:
   • Run-around, strike, or drop gill nets - gill nets that are actively fished by either (1) using the boat to run a net around a school of fish, creating a closed circle, or (2) using the boat after the net is set to herd fish into the net without delay, whereby soak time does not exceed 30 minutes from the end of the set to the beginning of the haul.
   • Drift gill nets - gill nets that are used to capture fish while being moved along by water currents whereby the net stays attached to the vessel from deployment through retrieval.
8. Authorized incidental takes are at the state-wide level, not by Management Unit. This allows greater flexibility for the Division to streamline adaptive management options to keep incidental takes below the authorized levels.
9. Authorized incidental takes are in rolling two-year (ITP Year) intervals by species. The numbers of authorized takes are lower than the previous ITPs for each species because they are based on more recent levels of fishing effort and interaction rates for each species.
10. Authorized incidental takes include the rare Shortnose Sturgeon.
11. Unidentified sturgeon will be assigned as Atlantic Sturgeon, the more common species in North Carolina’s estuarine waters.
12. Unidentified sea turtles will be apportioned to the most common three species in accordance to their proportion in historical observer data as follows: 0.83 Green Sea Turtle, 0.14 Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle, 0.03 Loggerhead Sea Turtle.