VOL. 3, ISSUE 1
FEBRUARY 2020
Linking Fisheries and Habitat
A discussion about habitat
from the director's desk
Merriam Webster defines habitat as the place or environment where a plant or animal naturally or normally lives or grows. The forests, meadows and swamps and even your back yard form some part of habitat for our native plants and animals.

Fish, habitat, water quality –
making the connection
‘No wetlands . . . no seafood.’
Most folks have seen this bumper sticker. But it could as easily read ‘no habitats . . . no seafood’ because an adequate amount of various fish habitats throughout the estuarine landscape is necessary for sustaining our fisheries in North Carolina.

Protecting coastal habitats
in the face of changing climate
Hurricanes and tropical storms have affected the North Carolina coast since before such events were recorded. The N.C. State Climatology Office, based on data from 1883 to 1996, estimated that a tropical cyclone makes landfall along the coastline of North Carolina once every four years.

Monitoring seagrass essential
to managing coastal habitats
Seagrass requires good water quality to survive, so it is a good indicator of the overall health of an estuary. For this reason, the Division of Marine Fisheries and other agencies are monitoring seagrass in coastal North Carolina.

Meet the division staff with the
Coastal Habitat Protection Plan
The Habitat and Enhancement Section is the section within the Division of Marine Fisheries that houses the agency’s Coastal Habitat Protection Plan Program.

2019 was an exceptional year
for spotted seatrout fishing
Recreational anglers had outstanding spotted seatrout catches this past autumn making 2019 one of the best years on record for the fishery in North Carolina.