The North Carolina Department of Marine Fisheries (DMF) is responsible for the stewardship of the state’s marine and estuarine resources. Agency polices are drafted by division employees then presented to and voted on by the nine-member Marine Fisheries Commission before being reviewed by the Secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality. North Carolina is a member of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council. Learn more about the division.
The Division of Marine Fisheries was founded in 1822, when the NC General Assembly passed legislation to impose gear restrictions on oyster Harvest. That was followed by separate fish and shellfish commissions which were combined in 1915 to form one commercial regulatory body. In 1965, the commission’s jurisdiction was expanded to include regulatory authority over recreational fishing in coastal waters. Today, state fishery management is steered by the Fisheries Reform Act of 1999, which mandates if a species is deemed overfished, overfishing must stop within two years and stocks must be rebuilt within 10 years.
The Division of Marine Fisheries has eight sections: Fisheries Management; Habitat and Enhancement; License and Statistics; Marine Patrol; Shellfish Sanitation and Recreational Water Quality; Public Affairs; Administrative and Maintenance Services; Information Technology. The state is broken up into four coastal districts: Northern, Southern, Central, and Pamlico; which are broken up even further into specific regions depending on the fishery.
