Harold’s Fall: The Fishing Communities of Little River and Shem Creek, SC
David Griffith, Institute for Coastal Science & Policy, East Carolina University
5 Feb 2010
In July 2009, long-time fisherman Harold Olsen died from a fall at the Geechee Dock on Shem Creek. At the time of his death, he was a shark fisherman, but his fishing career spanned the commercial and recreational fishing industries, making him an astute critic of fishery management with a depth of knowledge about the marine environment and the political economy of fishing. Beginning with an account of Harold’s interaction with South Carolina researchers and the context of his death, this seminar will describe the commercial and recreational fishing communities of Shem Creek and Little River, South Carolina, discuss the consequences of coastal and marine management measures on the fishers of the two communities, and place the two communities within a regional analytical framework that emphasizes social network ties and interactions among ports along the corridor from Wilmington, North Carolina to Charleston, South Carolina.