Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Home Blog Page 91

Ocracoke Fig Festival returns this week

0
Ripe figs on Ocracoke. Photo: C. Leinbach

The Ocracoke Fig Festival returns this week Friday, Aug. 4, through Saturday, Aug. 5, at the Berkley barn and the Ocracoke Preservation Center, which produces the event.

The festival will feature Chef Bill Smith, retired head chef at Crook’s Corner Restaurant in Chapel Hill, and the author of two cookbooks, many articles and winner of multiple awards.

Several live music events will highlight the festival along with storytelling, children’s activities and crafts, talks by local fig experts, and vendor booths offering various fig-centric items.

The schedule of events is below.

All events are free, except where noted. Parking is available at the NPS lot.

Friday, Aug. 4:
At the OPS Museum:

1-3 p.m.  Book Signing with Chef Bill Smith, author of “Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crook’s Corner and from Home.” Bring your own well-loved copy or purchase one at the OPS Museum Gift Shop.

At Berkley Barn:
10 a.m. – 6 p.m.  Figtastic vendor booths

10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Ocracoke Catering Company serving pork, chicken, seafood with fig BBQ sauces.

1-7 p.m.  Live music with local musicians

1-9:45 p.m.  Cash bar with beer, wine, & soft drinks

3-5 p.m. Fig Preserves Contest – Drop off your entry at OPS Museum before 2pm. Anyone can enter Fig Preserves in two categories- Traditional or Innovative (includes combinations with other fruits). Tasting Tickets/Ballots are $3 each; voters choose the winners.

5-7 p.m. Martin & Friends, including Coyote

7-8 p.m.  Traditional Ocracoke Square Dance (outside, weather permitting)

8-10 p.m.  Live Music with Raygun Ruby

Saturday, Aug. 5
At Berkley Barn:

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.  Bring Fig Cake Bake-Off entries to Berkley Barn

10 a.m. – 6 p.m.  Figtastic vendor booths

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.  Ocracoke Catering Company serving pork, chicken, seafood.

10 a.m. – 4 p.m.  Silent Auction fundraiser for OPS

11 a.m.  Ocracoke “Fig Cultivation & Culture” talk with Chester Lynn

11 a.m. – 3 p.m.  Figgy Tie-Dye and Fig Leaf Painting for kids

Noon – 6 p.m.  Cash bar with beer, wine, & soft drinks

Noon- Q & A with Chef Bill Smith

1-3 p.m.  Live music with local musicians

2-3 p.m. COYOTE (Lou Castro & Marcy Brenner)

3 p.m.  Fig Cakes go on display in the barn

4 p.m.  Fig Cake Judging, followed by Serving of Fig Cakes 5 to 6 p.m.  Live Music with Molasses Creek

In Ocracoke Community Center:

7- 8 p.m.  Ocracoke Kids Rock Band with Lou Castro

8- 11:45 p.m. Dance with Ocracoke Rockers Cash bar with beer, wine, soft drinks

The miracle church of Swan Quarter

0
The original church “moved by the hand of God” is behind and attached to the newer brick church on Church Street.

First-place winner in the Religion & Faith category in the 2023 NCPA Newspaper contest, Online Division.

Text and photos by Connie Leinbach

If you’re in a hurry on your way westward out of Swan Quarter in Hyde County, you might miss a historical marker that describes a local “miracle.”

This marker, at the intersection of N.C. 45 and U.S. 264, highlights the Providence Methodist Church that was “moved by the hand of God.”

Today, the little wooden church is attached behind the newer brick church at the corner of Main and Church streets.

According to a 1982 brochure by the historical committee of the church, its story goes back to 1874 when members of the Methodist faith in Swan Quarter decided it was time to abandon the temporary place where they had been holding services and to seek a location for their own church.

The leader Benjamin Griffin Credle and his committee picked out a site for a church on the highest spot in the heart of town.

They approached the owner of the lot, Sam Sadler, one-time clerk of Hyde County Superior Court, and asked to purchase the land, but Sadler declined to sell.

The Methodists then accepted a gift of a lot offered by James W. Hayes, which was about 1,000 feet behind the present courthouse, and a short time later, building began. When the church, a modest structure on brick piers, was barely enclosed, people began to worship in it. At that time, it was the Methodist Episcopal Church South.

Then, on September 16, 1876, on the eve of the dedication of the church, a storm began to brew and turned into a tempest.

What happened after that is told in an affidavit given by Mrs. Lelia Brinn, an eyewitness, to P.G. Gallop in 1939.

Brinn was born and reared in Swan Quarter and lived into the 1950s. Gallop was superintendent of Hyde County schools from 1935 to 1941 and president of the first Hyde County Chamber of Commerce.

According to Brinn, rain fell and wind blew until the morning of September 17, 1876.

As often happens when hurricanes strike the region, floodwaters rose quickly from the sound and creeks surrounding Swan Quarter.

The water rose that day to five feet or more and dislodged the little Methodist church from its location into the road, now called Oyster Creek Road.

The building floated down the road to the corner of Oyster Creek Road and U.S. 264 Business, or Main Street.

Then, it took a sharp right turn and headed down Main Street for about two city blocks until it reached the corner of what is now Church Street.

Then it moved slightly off its course, took another turn to the left, crossed the Carawan Canal directly in front of the place where the people had originally desired the church to be and settled in the center of the Sadler property, the site which had been refused.

The historic marker at N.C. 45 and U.S. 264 outside of Swan Quarter.

“The man who owned the lot went to the courthouse the next day or when they could and said, ‘Okay, I’ll sell it.’” said Sandra Tunnell, who lives down the road a bit from the church. “Some people said a church can’t move, but it wasn’t on any type of foundation, just sitting on some pilings.”

Originally designated the Methodist Episcopal Church South, it was later renamed Providence United Methodist Church — a tribute to what members considered divine intervention.

After the brick church was finished in 1913, the original chapel became a fellowship hall and place for Sunday school classes.

“It’s been gutted,” Tunnell said of the brick building, and though it was most recently used as a place to house United Methodist Committee on Relief, it remains empty.

The church in 1976 celebrated its 100th anniversary, she said.

“We had a big service with past members and pastors,” she said, “and women wore dresses of 1876.”

In 1999, Hurricane Floyd flooded the town, again damaging the church. The congregation of about 50 made extensive repairs, Tunnell said.  

Hurricane Isabel again flooded the village and the church in 2003.

“We were done after that and quit having church there,” she said, and the parishioners joined with Soule United Methodist Church across from Mattamuskeet High School.

After Isabel, Molasses Creek, Ocracoke’s contemporary folk music band, performed some concerts there in a goodwill effort called “Music Across the Sound,” band leader Gary Mitchell said.

He immortalized the incident in a song titled “Moved By the Hand of God.”

It’s a jaunty little tune, telling the story of the waterborne church and how the owner of the desired plot of land says, “It’s gonna take a miracle for me to let it go.”

Let it go he did, though the miracle was not without a downside.

“Water brought it to us,” Tunnell said about the Providence Church, “and water took it away.”

‘The only way to heal is to share stories’

0

By Catherine Kozak
Reprinted by permission of the Outer Banks Voice

Kelly Shinn, left, reading from her book, with moderator Angel Khoury, right, at COA Veteran’s Hall. Photo by Catherine Kozak

To read a book review, click here

Within moments after she sat herself down, crossed her legs with her tan-colored prosthetic bare feet poking out from under her long, flowered dress and started reading from her memoir, The Wounds that Bind Us, it made sense not just what brought Kelley Shinn to the Outer Banks — specifically, Ocracoke — but why she stayed.

It’s not just that Shinn is irreverent, edgy, and funny, or even that her story perfectly fits the tossed-ashore-by-the-stormy-seas-of-life metaphor. It’s that she has cultivated how to make the best with what she’s been handed, figured out how to keep moving forward, and learned that family, friends and community matter the most.

Under the guidance of fellow writer and Outer Banks resident Angel Khoury, Shinn spent 90 minutes on the evening of Tuesday, July 25 at the College of The Albemarle (COA) in Manteo expounding on her 48 years of life that began in an orphanage, took her from a talented teen runner living with her adopted parents in Akron, Ohio, to a 16-year-old victim of a freak disease that destroyed both her lower legs. From there, it was on to single motherhood, off-road cross-country travel with her young daughter in tow in a Land Rover and brash adventures in Europe and the Bosnian war zone.

After returning to the U.S., she ended up in 2013 on Ocracoke Island as part of a writing fellowship, and ever since, the tiny fishing village has been home.

Long before that, shortly after she had recovered from having her legs amputated below the knees at age 16, she was on her way to Topsail Island, but somehow ended up on Ocracoke. Still feeling awkward about her body, she waited until the light was low and decided to go into the ocean.

“I took off my prosthetic legs and I crawled into the water,” she recalled. “And I started weeping…  And then there was a double rainbow. I came back about 10 years ago, and I haven’t left.”

Shinn didn’t start the event, which was sponsored by Downtown Books in Manteo and COA, by talking about herself. At Khoury’s prompting, she launched into reading a part of her book detailing a gripping episode that took place around 2002 in Bosnia at a bombed-out bridge that had been built in 1566 by the Ottoman Turks.

Describing her attempt to take a photograph of the bridge, she dropped her camera and was determined to retrieve it, a pursuit that was replete with hazards.

“On the other side of the three-foot wall, two hundred feet below, the clear, turquoise Neretva flows,” Shinn read, her voice vivid, as if the image was still in front of her. “It turns out, at the end of this alley that is now a dead end, there was once a modern bridge. Far below me, in the froth, glowing in the midafternoon sunlight, the bombed bridge wreckage lies splayed out like an industrial open-heart surgery.”

She was drawn to Bosnia, she said, as a way to help those who had lost their limbs by stepping on unexploded land mines, some of which she saw littering a dirt path near the bridge. Ninety percent of land mine victims are women and children, Shinn told the audience at COA.  “I thought, ‘Wow, I should be able to raise some money for them,’ she said. ‘A single mother with no legs!’”

Initially, Shinn wrote essays, short stories and a novel because she “wanted to protect people” from the harsh details of her personal story. She settled on a memoir only after an editor told her that her story “was too unbelievable for fiction.” When it came down to the revision and editing process, she was finally able to put her nose to the grindstone.

Shinn had earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at Hollins University in Roanoke, Va. and had worked for years as an adjunct writing professor.  She has been published in numerous publications, including the New York Times.

“I finished this version of the book in 31 days,” she said. “I wept, I laughed…so everything you feel in the book, I had to go through it all again.”

That included sexual assault, physical abuse, a stillbirth, divorce, among other difficulties she described. At the same time, Shinn said her travels provided tremendous experiences, friendships and opportunities for herself and her daughter, who is now 25. (Shinn has another child, a 17-year-old son.)

“The major theme of my book is compassion,” Shinn says. “Nobody’s a villain in my book — even in war.”  And she credits the act of writing her memoir for helping her put it all, the bad and the good, in perspective, to see the connections in life, and to heal.

“I think we’re desperate for healing,” she said, “and the only way to heal is to share stories. I had to learn to sit presently with my pain. I didn’t want to hide from it. This is who I am; this is what I did.”

She is already working on her next book about living through Hurricane Dorian in 2019, which devastated Ocracoke with seven-foot floods from storm surge.

“It’s about trauma, resilience and loss,” Shinn said, adding jokingly, “I might get kicked off the island.”

Ocracoke passenger ferry season extended through Labor Day

3
The Ocracoke Express pulls into Ocracoke’s Silver Lake harbor. Photo: C. Leinbach

From our news services

Due to popular demand and anticipated funding in next year’s state budget, the N.C. Department of Transportation will extend the Ocracoke Express operating season through Sept. 4. The season was previously slated to end on July 31.

“This is great news for visitors and businesses on Ocracoke,” said Ferry Division Interim Director Jed Dixon. “This extension will give summer visitors to the Outer Banks a chance to experience the fastest, easiest way to take a day trip to Ocracoke Island.”

On Aug. 1, the vessel will go out of service for previously scheduled maintenance that is expected to last one or two days.

After that, the ferry will resume its daily schedule through Sept. 4:

From Hatteras: 9:30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
From Ocracoke: 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

The Ocracoke Express, now in its fifth season, whisks people on a 70-minute trip between Hatteras and Silver Lake Harbor in Ocracoke Village, where a free tram operated by Hyde County is available to carry them around the village to shops, restaurants, accommodations and attractions.

The passenger-only ferry allows visitors to make reservations and skip the lines for the vehicle ferry.

More than 75,000 people have ridden the Ocracoke Express in the last four seasons.

Advance reservations for the Ocracoke Express are available online at www.ncferry.org or on the phone at 1-800-BY-FERRY.

People have other travel options as the vehicle ferries between Hatteras and Ocracoke are continuing to operate on their current schedule.

Ocracoke events July 24 to 30

0
Ahhh! Refreshing summer surf on Ocracoke. Photo: C. Leinbach

Monday, July 24
Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 7 pm): Ray Murray

Tuesday, July 25
Bird walk. A limited number of binoculars are available for use. Meet at NPS Campground parking lot, 8:30 am,

Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 7 pm): Bryan Mayer

Wednesday, July 26
Ocracoke Preservation Society Kids Craft: Making cat masks, 1 pm.

Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): DJ Yes!!

Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 7 pm): Bryan Mayer

DAJIO (all music at 7:30 pm): Ray Murray

Deepwater Theater: Ocrafolk Opry. 8 pm. feature Martin Garrish, Gary Mitchell, Fiddler Dave, & Dallas Mason with special guests Katy Mitchell, Jenny Hargrove, Russ Reynolds and Philip Howard. The show is at Ocracoke Alive’s Deepwater Theater, School Road, Ocracoke. Door opens at 7:30 PM, show runs 8-9:15 PM. Tickets available at the door or online.

The Breeze: Gravitation, 9 pm

Thursday, July 27
Ocracoke Preservation Society Porch Talk: Ocracats with Rita Thiel, 1 pm

Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): Brooke & Nick

Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 7 pm): Kate McNally (also July 31)

The Breeze: Gravitation, 9 pm

Friday, July 28
Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): Kate McNally

Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 7 pm): Nick & Adam

The Breeze: The Lost Artists, 9 pm

Saturday, July 29
Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): TBD

Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 7 pm): Ocracoke Rockers

The Breeze: The Lost Artists, 9 pm

Red Knots spring migration on the Outer Banks  

0
Red Knots of Ocracoke May 22, 2023.

Text and photos by Peter Vankevich

Those spending time on Ocracoke beach and other areas of the Outer Banks this spring may have been pleasantly surprised to see flocks of binge-foraging Red Knots, the rufa supspecies (Calidris canutus rufa).

Transitioning from the drab basic or winter gray/white plumage to their bright orange/red breasts and rufous backs could make identification a challenge. But their behavior of feeding along the waterline in flocks from 10 or so to more than 100 distinguishes them from other shorebirds here.

Red Knots in varying plumage photographed on Ocracoke May 22, 2023

The knots were using the beach as a foraging stopover, fattening up to make their long migration to their nesting grounds in the central Canadian Arctic.

Listed in 2014 as threatened under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, their presence in large numbers here and other areas added to a cautious sign of optimism that the species is doing better.

Historically, the Delaware Bay region has been considered the most important stopover for Red Knots’ long migration because that area coincides when horseshoe crabs arrive to spawn and lay millions of eggs. Horseshoe crab eggs are a high fat nutrient-rich food source and essential to fueling the Red Knots’ migration to their Arctic breeding grounds.

An independent Delaware Bay survey in May reported 22,000 Red Knots, the highest number in four years. The lowest number tallied in these surveys was in 2021 with just 6,880. By contrast, the highest count was in 1989 with 90,000 individuals.

Another encouraging sign was aerial surveys taken in key Tierra del Fuego areas reported the highest number of wintering knots in 10 years. The southern tip of South America has been an important wintering ground. Those wintering individuals make one of the longest migrations–some 9,000 miles to nest and again return in the fall.

The two National Seashores on the Outer Banks monitor Red Knots along with other species.

According to Amy Thompson, the biological science technician for Ocracoke, Cape Hatteras National Seashore collects Red Knot data a couple of different ways.

One of these methods is to systematically survey the entire island on the 5th, 15th, and 25th of every month when weather conditions permit. The May 15 survey counted 1,318 individuals combined from the three districts of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore (Bodie, Hatteras and Ocracoke islands), she wrote in an email.

“The other method is to collect opportunistic counts of Red Knots while we’re conducting morning patrols,” she added. “This provides a general idea of the total number of Red Knots stopping along the Seashore to rest and refuel on a daily basis. In the month of May, Ocracoke staff counted over 100 Red Knots every day with a minimum of 106 on May 1 and the maximum of 1,951 on May 10.”

The staff of Cape Lookout National Seashore, south of Ocracoke Island concluded their last Red Knot spring migration survey on June 5. Their surveys are divided into South Core Banks (SCB) and North Core Banks (NCB). The combined peak count was on May 15 with 1,986 individuals, according to Jon Altman, supervisory biologist for Cape Lookout National Seashore. “This number is lower than the high count of 2,997 birds last year on May 25, but overall, May 2023 had more birds the whole month than 2022,” he said in an email.

The combined total from nine surveys from March 15 to June 5 for Cape Lookout was 7,402 individuals.

“Unfortunately, we have not been able to cover from Ocracoke Inlet to Evergreen Inlet which is three miles of prime Red Knot habitat with little to no disturbance since it is hard to get to by boat and people can only walk that section.,” he said.

The Red Knot has a been a source of concern due to a rapid decline of its population, as much as a staggering 87% since 2000, according to a study, and more than 94% since the 1980s in some areas of the Atlantic Coast.

The principal cause for this decline is from a drastic decrease of horseshoe crab eggs which have plummeted due to the overharvesting of horseshoe crabs.

Horseshoe crab.

Of the 22,000 Red Knots observed, only 2,200 were seen on the Delaware side of the bay, the rest were in New Jersey. This is due, in part, to New Jersey having more protections for horseshoe crabs than Delaware, including a 2008 moratorium on harvesting, beach closures and habitat restoration projects.

The Carolina coasts are important foraging/resting stopovers for Red Knots as well as wintering grounds for them in small numbers.

The information gathered by the National Park Service along with aerial surveys adds to a better understanding of Red Knot migration and helps in making a recovery plan.

Taking active steps to help Red Knots increase their numbers will also benefit other species that make long distance migrations such as the Ruddy Turnstone and the Semipalmated Sandpiper.

There are many governmental agencies, conservation organizations, researchers and volunteers from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic working to save the Red Knot. These efforts and limiting excessive harvesting of horseshoe crabs go hand in hand to removing them from the threatened list of the Endangered Species Act

One website worth reading is A Rube with a View written by Larry Niles, Ph.D. He chronicled surveying the Red Knots presence in New Jersey this past spring. 

Red Knots on Ocracoke, May 14, 2023

Passenger ferry to Ocracoke resumes but will end July 31

2
Ocracoke Express docked on Ocracoke July 20, 2023. Photo P. Vankevich

By Connie Leinbach

After having been sidelined since July 7, the Ocracoke Express passenger ferry resumed service July 19, but it will only go until July 31 since funding beyond that is uncertain.

That was the report from Jed Dixon, N.C. Ferry Division deputy director, at the Ocracoke Civic & Business Association (OCBA) meeting Tuesday evening.

Dixon said via computer link in that meeting that after they’d received a part to repair the starboard hydraulic steering pump and the boat passed a Coast Guard inspection, it resumed current schedule of runs between Hatteras and Ocracoke.

The passenger ferry departs from the Hatteras terminal at 9:30 a.m., 1 p.m., and 4:30 p.m. and from Ocracoke Silver Lake Terminal at 11 a.m., 3 p.m., and 7:30 p.m.

A continuing resolution in the N.C. state legislature allows funding while the new budget is still in limbo. Even though the House version of the budget includes $88 million for the Ferry Division and the Senate version includes $70 million, both up from $58 million appropriated last year, the crux of the budget contention is state employee pay raises and Medicaid expansion, according to reports.

“(With that continuing resolution), there’s only sufficient funding to run the passenger ferry until July 31,” Dixon said.

He said they will reevaluate the schedules after the General Assembly adopts a budget.

Bob Chestnut, OCBA chair, told Dixon that over the last five years it looks like there’s been a significant downward trend in the number of runs to Ocracoke.

“I’ve charted May and June, and there’s a reduction in the number of passengers in June by 20% on a five-year average and by 10 % on a year-to-year basis,” he said.  “I’m concerned and a lot of people in the community are concerned that this is a trend, that it’s almost planned. Is that the idea — to reduce the Ocracoke ferry runs and put them somewhere else because we don’t see the same reductions in other runs?”

Dixon said no, that run reductions are based on where they can save money. The Hatteras-Ocracoke route is the division’s most expensive operation.

“That’s largely due to the number of seasonal staffers whereas other runs have fulltime permanent employees,” he said about the Hatteras route expense.

Dixon said he hopes to get the schedule back to where it normally is once a budget is passed.

“It’s my desire to get as many runs as we can there but we’ve got to have the employees to do that,” Dixon said. “If the funding is there, the goal is going to be to fully restore that schedule.”

He suggested that, in the fight for ferry funding, islanders continue to tell Ocracoke’s story to as many in Raleigh as will listen.

“There’s nothing I’d like better than to put all the runs back on,” he said. “I think that would solve everyone’s problems.”

Chestnut said the group was able to deliver personal impact statements to Gov. Roy Cooper on Tuesday.

Hyde County Manager Kris Noble said Hyde County Lobbyist Bob Steinburg told her a budget is not expected until Labor Day.

“There’s a wide divide on spending requests between the two (legislative) chambers with the House looking to spend significantly more than its Senate colleagues,” she said.

The budget rests with the appropriations chairs in the two chambers.

Noble reached out again on Tuesday to N.C. Transportation Secretary Eric Boyette, since it was a month since she and others had met with him, but she had not heard back from him.

She said that she thought that the top people islanders should try to reach are the House and Senate appropriations committee chairs, the Speaker of the House (Tim Moore) and the Senate Pro Tempore (Phil Berger), and Cooper and Boyette.

“I don’t think we can contact them enough,” she said. Noble also suggested that people copy legislators’ legislative assistants. See lists below.

All legislators contact information can also be found at ncleg.net.

Noble said feedback from Ocracoke business owners has been that the suspension of passenger ferry service has been felt.

“I’ve talked to a bunch of them, and they say it hurts when it’s not running and will hurt again when funding for it stops on July 31,” she said,

She noted that this struggle for funding and reducing ferry runs is “a dangerous long-term trend” for which we have to bring awareness to officials in Raleigh.

She said she thought other coastal counties would be interested in joining with Ocracoke in this advocacy.

“I’ve had other coastal county managers reach out to me to say they’d assist us,” she said.

She said the matching funds for the free tram that typically runs through Labor Day weekend is not tied to passenger ferry funding.

Contact information

Gov. Roy Cooper
https://governor.nc.gov/contact/contact-governor-cooper

Secretary of Transportation J. Eric Boyette
jeboyette@ncdot.gov
919-707-2800
1501 MAIL SERVICE CENTER
Raleigh, NC 27699-1501
Executive Assistant to the Secretary: Natalie R. Carter

House Speaker Tim Moore
Tim.Moore@ncleg.gov
919-733-3451
16 West Jones Street, Rm. 2304
Raleigh, NC 27601-1096
Legislative Assistant: Grace Irvin

Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger
Phil.Berger@ncleg.gov
(919) 733-5708
16 West Jones Street, Rm. 2007
Raleigh, NC 27601
Legislative Assistant: Abbigail Clark

N.C Wildlife Resources Commission launches online licensing platform

0
Fishing on Ocracoke, NC. Photo: C. Leinbach

From our news sources

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has launched a new, custom licensing system and mobile app, Go Outdoors North Carolina, that provides paperless web and mobile solutions.

Through Go Outdoors North Carolina, developed in partnership with Brandt, a Florida-based company, residents and non-residents can purchase licenses, register vessels, apply for permits and shop for merchandise online.

Customers can upgrade their digital license(s) to a durable, hard card license with four design options to choose from that feature North Carolina game and fish. The designs are of white-tailed deer, wood duck, largemouth bass and dolphinfish.

“The new platform brings user-friendly features to outdoor enthusiasts across the state,” said Executive Director Cameron N. Ingram with the Wildlife Commission. “This new, efficient system is designed to improve the user experience for our fishing, hunting, and trapping license holders, vessel registrants and wildlife service agents.”

The Go Outdoors North Carolina app for iOS and Android users features a range of resources from virtual maps, regulations, vessel registration and more. 

Through real-time license verification and secure digital storage, the app ensures that users can conveniently access their licenses at any time, even from their mobile devices, view regulations and sunrise/sunset times in the field and report harvests after hunting.

As part of the partnership, Brandt also developed a mobile app for Wildlife law enforcement officers to be able to scan license documents and/or hard card QR codes to confirm customer status in the field, with or without cell phone reception.

Customers can create an account online at Go Outdoors North Carolina or download the app to buy or sync their current licenses.

Fishing licenses also can be purchased in person on Ocracoke at Tradewinds Tackle.

Hyde County proposes dogs-at-large prohibition for Ocracoke village

3

Update: The Hyde County Board of Commissioners at the Sept. 6, 2023, meeting approved the amendment to the Animal Control ordinance prohibiting dogs running at large on Ocracoke. The graphic below shows the minutes when the ordinance was passed.

By Connie Leinbach

Under a proposed amendment to the Ocracoke Development Ordinance, dogs soon would no longer be able to “run at large” on the island.

In the wake of an incident on July 12 in which a pit bull, after it had escaped its house, bit two dogs and an island woman, County Manager Kris Noble on Tuesday night at the Ocracoke Civic & Business Association meeting shared drafts of two amendments to the county’s animal control ordinance.

The second of the amendments would prohibit “dogs running at large within Ocracoke Island,” she said.

In discussing the incident, Joe Smith, captain of the Hyde County Sheriff on Ocracoke, reported that after the dog escaped its house, the owner was actively looking for it.

But in the meantime, it had bitten two other dogs, one of which was seriously injured and was taken to Roanoke Island Animal Clinic.

Dr. Mary Burkart on Wednesday said the young poodle owned by a visitor had its jaw repaired and went home to Connecticut.

Smith said a deputy had arrived on the scene that day and tried to grab the attacking dog which then tried to bite him. The deputy fired a shot, but the shot grazed the dog’s leg, and the dog ran off.

Then it attacked another young dog being walked by an island woman, both of whom got bitten in the scuffle.

The woman was bitten on one of her fingers and the dog in the throat area.

Since there was no record of the at-large dog having had a rabies vaccination, the woman explored getting rabies shots, but she said on Wednesday that she had heard from the state on Monday that the attacking dog did not have rabies and she did not have to undergo shots.

Smith said Tuesday night that he had told the owner that he could either pay fines or have animal control take the dog and put him down to be tested for rabies. The owner chose to have the animal put down.

“In all three of those incidents a leash law would not have prevented a single one of those attacks,” he said, since those dogs escaped from houses or back yards.

As for animal control and since there are infrequent calls, Noble said Hyde County works with Tyrrell County’s animal control officer Cecil Lilley.

The first of Noble’s draft amendments (Sec. 4-17) would require owners to be responsible for the care and behavior of their animals.

The second, Sec. 4-18, would prohibit dogs from running at large within the Ocracoke village boundaries as depicted in the Ocracoke Development Ordinance.

She said that after the county attorney reviews the drafts, two public hearings for comment would be held before the county commissioners could adopt them.

Ocracoke’s commissioner Randal Mathews said he’s brought this up at other commissioner meetings, has been talking to a lot of people and is glad to see progress on this issue.

He thanked Smith for his clarifications because he thinks there’s been some misinformation.

He also said that since last April, he has dealt with three such incidents.

“I don’t think one time has the county been negligent and any insinuation of that offends me,” he said.

Bob Chestnut, OCBA chair, said there was a lot of public input for the organization to take some kind of action.

“It’s good,” he said of the proposed amendments. “It’s moving in the right direction.”

Luana Gibbs, Hyde County Health director, said in an interview Tuesday that the state tests for rabies fairly quickly since time is of the essence.

She also is looking into having a low-cost rabies clinic on Ocracoke.

According to the current, county-wide ordinance, all dogs and cats over four months of age running at large must display a current rabies tag.

The ordinance also empowers the sheriff’s department to determine of a dog is “vicious.” If so, the ordinance requires those dogs to be kept on the owners’ property or on a leash and “in the care of a responsible person.”

The OCBA meeting was streamed live on the OCBA Facebook page.

Mathews provided the following links regarding what may local governments do to prevent owners from letting their
animals roam without a leash:

https://www.sog.unc.edu/resources/faqs/what-may-local-governments-do-prevent-owners-letting-their-animals-roam-without-leash
https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_153A/GS_153A-121.html

Ocracoke events July 17 to 23

0
Pamlico Sound sunset. Photo: C. Leinbach

Tuesday, July 18
NPS Bird walk, meet at the NPS Campground, 8:30 am

Ocracoke Civic & Business Association, 6 pm. Community Center.

1718 Brewing Ocracoke: Virginia & the Slims, 7 pm

Wednesday, July 19
Roanoke Island Animal Clinic on Ocracoke around 9:30 am. Appointments: 252-473-3117.

Ocracoke Preservation Society Kids Craft: Joe Belle flowers, 1 pm

Ocracoke Waterways Commission, Community Center. 6:30 pm.

Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): Team Trivia

Ocracoke Oyster Company: Barefoot Wade, 7 pm

Deepwater Theater: Ocrafolk Opry, 8 pm.

Thursday, July 20
Ocracoke Preservation Society Porch Talk: Debbie Wells on the Island Inn landscaping project, 1 pm.

Bingo, 6:30 pm. Ocracoke Community Center

Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): Brooke & Nick

Ocracoke Oyster Company: Ray Murray, 7 pm

Friday, July 21
Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): Kate McNally

1718 Brewing Ocracoke (music at 7 pm): Clam Slammers

The Breeze (all music at 9 pm): Barefoot Wade Band

Ocracoke Oyster Company(music at 7 pm): Nick & Adam

Saturday, July 22
Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): music TBD

1718 Brewing Ocracoke (music at 7 pm): Rolling Dynamite

Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 7 pm): Clam Slammers

DAJIO (all music at 7:30 pm): Ray McAllister Band

1...909192...511Page 91 of 511
© Ocracoke Observer 2026 All rights reserved.