represented. For better or worse, the 

 auxiliaries have become part of the 

 regulatory process, he says. 



"I think they have a legitimate 

 place, and they have every right to 

 have their viewpoint expressed," he 

 says. "There's no question they have 

 an effect. They let their views be 

 known. Because they formed a group, 

 they are automatically more or less in 

 the system." 



Though their presence may repre- 

 sent strong sentiment, the auxiliaries 

 try to take a methodical and organized 

 approach. True to her group's reputa- 

 tion as researchers, Twila Nelson, 

 president of the Carteret auxiliary, has 

 been combing tax records to find out 

 how many commercial boats are 

 registered and how much money 

 commercial fishing means to her 

 county. 



She fears that a move to ban 

 almost all commercial nets off the 

 coast of Florida will migrate to North 

 Carolina. 



"We're trying to stay a step 

 ahead," she says. 



The desire for accurate informa- 

 tion used in decision-making was 

 central to the group's formation, says 

 its secretary Mildred Gilgo, whose 

 family has fished for generations. 



"We wanted data-based decisions 

 rather than propaganda and hostility," 

 she says. "We look for the truth be- 

 cause the truth never hurt a fisherman. 

 We try to research. We try not to go on 

 emotion. We try to go on facts. We try 

 to do things in a logical, commonsense 

 way." 



That doesn't mean the issues 

 aren't emotional for the participants. 

 "It's our livelihood," Gilgo says. "It's 

 our culture." 



The auxiliaries' calm, systematic 

 presentations have been a departure 

 from the past performances of some of 

 their constituents. 



"Fishermen have a reputation of 

 just kind of jumping up and down at 

 public hearings and saying, 'Y'all 

 can't do this to me,'" says Barbara 

 Garrity-Blake, an anthropologist and a 

 member of the Carteret auxiliary who 



lives in Gloucester. "The women have 

 really been requesting accountability 

 from policy-makers. Not just, 'You 

 can't do this to us,' but 'What are you 

 basing these policies on? Can we see 

 the data? Where is this coming from?' 



"That's been a very effective 

 approach," she says. 



Garrity-Blake was moved to join 

 the auxiliary after conducting her 

 doctoral research on the menhaden 

 industry. "I wanted to give something 

 back," she says. "I live here. I was 

 concerned about what was going on." 



The auxiliaries, she says, are 

 attempting to catch up with their 

 political adversaries. Sportfishing 

 organizations are "extremely orga- 

 nized, very well-connected politically 

 and have a lot of money backing 

 them," she says. "They know how the 

 game works." 



The work is demanding and 

 frustrating, she says. 



"Fishermen are notorious for 

 having a hard time organizing. They're 

 a hard group to help because they're so 

 independent, so autonomous," says 

 Garrity-Blake. 



And trying to voice concerns to a 

 bureaucracy can be like shouting into 

 the wind. 



"This is a very intense endeavor," 

 she says. "The auxiliaries have made a 

 lot of forward steps but no great big, 

 giant victories. So people get discour- 

 aged, and there's a high burnout rate." 



All the auxiliaries have a tough 

 time holding members and sharing 

 tasks. Pamlico and Carteret each count 

 about 35 paid members, and Hatteras- 

 Ocracoke, about 100. The volume of 

 work falls on the shoulders of a few. 



Auxiliary members add long 

 drives, meetings, countless phone 

 calls, tedious research and other activi- 

 ties to lives already full with jobs, 

 families and community obligations. 

 Their routines are made even more 

 complex by their husbands' unpredict- 

 able schedules. 



Susan West, president of the 

 Hatteras-Ocracoke group, says auxil- 

 iary work is never-ending and all- 

 consuming. 



"The responsibility I feel to the 

 auxiliary, I put that before a lot of other 

 things that used to be important to me. I 

 let all those other things slide," she 

 says. "Some days it seems like it's 

 worthwhile. And other days I look at 

 how dirty my house is, and the fact that 

 we don't have regular cooked meals as 

 often as we used to before all this 

 started, and I think, jeepers, this is 

 rough. 



"It's kind of bizarre how our lives 

 have changed," West says. "At our last 

 auxiliary meeting, we talked about 

 politicians the way we used to gossip 

 about people we actually knew." 



The groups resent that a profession 

 once viewed as an admirable part of the 

 state's heritage is now attacked as an 

 exploiter of the environment. Adding to 

 the frustration is the sense that changes 

 have been sudden and severe. 



"Ten years ago, you had hopes for 

 your future and goals," says Crystal 

 Blackmon of the Hatteras-Ocracoke 

 auxiliary. "Now you're scared to buy a 

 new automobile." 



They have had some small suc- 

 cesses. A proposed total ban on weak- 

 fish last year was amended to a closure 

 for one day a week. Still, the work 

 sometimes seems overwhelming. 



"I decided the auxiliary was too 

 much a long time ago," says Elizabeth 

 Ainslie Struminski, who lives on 

 Hatteras Island and belongs to the 

 auxiliary there. "Our lives are pretty 

 much taken up with it. But you have to 

 keep going. You have to try." 



Her dream, says Struminski, is that 

 the auxiliary would have no reason to 

 exist, that there would be no public 

 policy issues to be forged or public 

 relations battles to be fought. 



"We could disband and not have to 

 do any of this," she says. "Our hus- 

 bands could just get up in the morning 

 and go to work." 



But that scenario will likely remain 

 only in memory and in fantasy, says 

 Schill of the fisheries association. 



"If there is to be a future for com- 

 mercial fishing families," he says, "it 

 will only be there with the maintaining 

 and growing of the auxiliaries." □ 



COASTWATCH 1 9 



