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WBM october 2011
mention the numerous V arnam-built
boats down at the V arnamtown and
H olden Beach docks. T he shrimp
were big and plentiful.
“E verything’s changed now,” he
says. T here are no more than a couple
of commercial shrimpers docked at
W rightsville and all but the lonesome
Cape Point, belonging to the young,
fifth generation shrimper, R oyce
Potter, of Potter’s Seafood have vanished
from Southport, once known
as the fishing capital of the N orth
C arolina coast.
“T he only thing that hasn’t
changed,” Potter says, “is the price.”
Potter’s father, L eroy, and his uncle,
John ‘T ookie’ Potter were quoted in
the Star News in 1974 charging $2.75
per pound, a quarter less than R oyce
Potter charged for his latest catch.
W ith shrimp prices dropping during
the last three decades, diesel fuel prices
are now more than three times what
they were in the 70s.
Potter says that competition from
international suppliers forces him to
keep his prices down.
Farm-raised shrimp imported from
all over the world, and wild caught
commercial shrimp harvested a week
to two weeks before it’s sold from
grocery stores and large-scale fish
markets, are supplying the demand
for more and more shrimp at dinner
tables and in restaurants. But that’s
just one of the pressures threatening
Potter and the dwindling number of
area shrimpers.
H eavy polluting of the C ape Fear
R iver has turned the once popular
shrimp spawning ground into a nearly
defunct crustacean nursery. Federal
regulations requiring T urtle E xcluder
D evices (TED ) in the 1990s leave
large holes in the once tightly-woven
opening of nylon shrimping nets
that, area shrimpers claim, allow for
significant shrimp loss. H urricanes
and beach renourishment have piled
loads of sand on the once muddy
sea floor that shrimp need to thrive
the W rightsville and C arolina Beach
coasts, making the W rightsville Beach
area a last resort for most shrimpers.