The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission Commercial Resource Fund Committee and the Funding Committee for the North Carolina Commercial Fishing Resource Fund are issuing a request for proposals for consideration of funding from the North Carolina Commercial Fishing Resource Fund.
Donor Name: North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)
State: North Carolina
Type of the Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/01/2022
Details:
The Commercial Fishing Resource Fund is composed of a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the commercial fishing licenses issued by the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries (NCDMF). The N.C. General Assembly created the fund to support the development of sustainable commercial fishing in the State.
The purpose of the North Carolina Commercial Fishing Resource Fund (hereafter referred to a “Fund”) is to provide funding for projects to develop and support sustainable commercial fishing in the State. The purpose of the Strategic Plan for the North Carolina Commercial Fishing Resource Fund is to define criteria and goals to establish annual funding priorities for disbursement of funds from the North Carolina Commercial Fishing Resources Fund.
Eligibility Criteria
This Request for Proposal is open to both public and private entities and is subject to the State’s terms and conditions of contracting. Interested parties must submit a complete proposal. Partnerships between eligible entities are permitted. The proposal must include a letter defining the roles and responsibilities of each partner. The NCDMF has no obligation to enter into any partnership agreement.
Funding Year 2022 Eligible Proposal Opportunities
- Program Area – Fish / Fishery
- Priorities: F3
- Project Focus: Examination of commercial and recreational fishing data
- Compare data collection for the recreational and commercial sectors
- Evaluate trends in commercial and recreational contribution to overall harvest and fishing mortality within
- NC’s mixed-used marine fisheries
- Evaluate the effectiveness of management strategies in both the commercial and recreational sectors for achieving the intended goals/reductions
- Evaluate whether management actions through time have represented de-facto reallocations between sectors
- Conduct a synthesis and critical evaluation of alternative frameworks and actions aimed at managing recreational marine fisheries to maximize equitability and/or to increasing fisher welfare
- Program Area – Fish / Fishery; Habitat
- Priorities: F1, F3, F4, H8, and/or H12
- Project Focus: Examination of the estuarine shrimp trawl industry
- Evaluate the impacts, if any, of estuarine shrimp trawling in NC on overall abundance of spot, croaker, and weakfish using all available data including but not limited to:
- Historical trends in overall abundance of spot, croakers, and weakfish
- Trends in shrimp trawl effort
- Data from DMF fishery independent and dependent surveys
- Management of the shrimp trawl fishery (area closures, habitat protections, gear restrictions, gear modifications, etc.)
- Evaluate the impacts, if any, of estuarine shrimp trawling in NC on overall abundance of spot, croaker, and weakfish using all available data including but not limited to:
- Program Area – Fish / Fishery
- Priorities: F3, P3, and/or P4
- Project Focus: Examination of gamefish designations
- Evaluate the effectiveness of gamefish designation and gear bans, enacted in other states, at increasing overall abundance and/or preventing future stock declines and further management restrictions (decreased bag limits, increased size limits, seasonal closures, etc.) for species like Red Drum, Speckled Trout, Striped Bass, Southern Flounder, etc.
- Program Area – People
- Priorities: P3
- Project Focus: Consumer education
- Enact a consumer education program to elevate consumer awareness and education
- Program Area – Fish/Fishery
- Priorities: F1
- Project Focus: Predation
- Predators play a large role in population numbers for most species of fish and many times are in direct correlation to periods of scarcity and abundance. Due to its complexity, predation impacts are often underrepresented or absent from management plans. Understanding and integrating predation effects into stock assessments and management plans will lead to more accurate conclusions of causes of mortality in fish populations. More in-depth research on predator prey relationships could result in more dynamic and effective management of harvest.
- Research natural predation and the effects on fisheries, focusing on species of concern or species that are overfished, and how it affects our stock assessment and fisheries management plans.
- Predators play a large role in population numbers for most species of fish and many times are in direct correlation to periods of scarcity and abundance. Due to its complexity, predation impacts are often underrepresented or absent from management plans. Understanding and integrating predation effects into stock assessments and management plans will lead to more accurate conclusions of causes of mortality in fish populations. More in-depth research on predator prey relationships could result in more dynamic and effective management of harvest.
- Program Area – Fish/Fishery
- Priorities: F2, F4, F7, H2, H14, H15 and/or H16
- Project Focus: Predation
- Research the predation impacts of cormorants, sharks, and/or cownose rays on commercially important species through independent sampling and surveys. This could include an examination of the relationship between these species and their individual or collective impacts to the trophic ecology of the State’s commercial fishery. The development of population sizes or investigation into existing population indices of abundance may assist in identifying benchmarks and triggers for future research needs.
- Natural predation effects that cormorants have on North Carolina’s fisheries.
- Natural predation effects that sharks have on North Carolina’s fisheries.
- Natural predation effects that cownose rays have on North Carolina’s fisheries.
- Program Area – Fish/Fishery
- Priorities: F1, F2, and/or F5
- Project Focus: Blue catfish
- Research the abundance of blue catfish in Albemarle Sound and tributaries
- Examine the ecosystem and predatory impacts to the Albemarle Sound
- Impacts on native fish species to the Albemarle Sound
- Investigate the sustainable efficiency of potentially new or underutilized gears and/or reducing unwanted bycatch in the current harvest of blue catfish.
- Program Area – Habitat
- Priorities: F4, H3, H16, P4
- Project Focus: Marine debris
- Cleanup of marine debris, such as a crab pot cleanup.
- Program Area – Fish/Fishery
- Priorities: F1, F2, F3, H1, H8, and/or H10
- Project Focus: Shrimp trawl fishery
- Accurately assess through directed surveys how much bottom is being trawled in the different water bodies by documenting actual effort and coverage in the shrimp trawl fishery.
- Compare areas that have been closed to trawling versus areas that are consistently trawled, which may include implementation of a pilot program and/or test sites
For more information, visit Commercial Fishing Resource Fund.
