Fuel Costs, Weather, & Regulations Contribute To Smaller NC Seafood Harvests

RALEIGH — “Live Crabs, $5.99 per pound” reads the paper sign hanging on the glass door of Saltwater Seafood, which on a good day sells 2,000 pounds of fish and shellfish.

Two years ago, that same North Carolina hard-shell blue crab cost customers just $2.99 per pound.

It’s a sign of a faltering North Carolina commercial fishing industry. A surge in prices has accompanied a drop in the state’s fish and shellfish harvest, which fell in 2013 for the fourth year in a row to the lowest in 10 years, according to a recent report from the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries.

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