Regulators must save menhaden to help striped bass
The coming days will be the tale of two fish and the regulatory process by which the pair is protected and managed.
The future of one fish, the striped bass, is directly tied to the future of the other, menhaden. But you wouldn’t know it by the way the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is acting.
Some commissioners are hair-on-fire ready to vote on Monday to begin the process of adding new protections for striped bass that could change size and creel limits or shorten the fishing season. Forget the fact that the science to back such a decision—a new stock assessment--is still more than a month away from completion.
But the menhaden debate may linger on, as it has for years, or result in approval of some half-hearted measure.
Yes, there are some disturbing signs that the striped bass, Maryland’s state fish, is facing tough times. The Chesapeake Bay, the spawning grounds and nursery for three-quarters of the entire Atlantic Seaboard population, is a filthy mess with an ever-increasing dead zone. Many adult striped bass have sores and are ravaged by a fatal disease that remains a mystery to scientists. The census of baby stripers in the bay has been below average for the last three years.
And the menhaden stock—a primary food source for striped bass—is at 14 percent of what it was 30 years ago.
But what will ASMFC do to protect menhaden on Tuesday, when the species comes up for discussion?
Maybe looking at harvest numbers they’ve had in hand for months, numbers that show the commercial harvest has exceeded its target in 32 of the last 54 years, commissioners will finally vote to fire up the regulation-making machine to give the fish a chance to repopulate the waters.
But maybe not.
In the first place, there’s Omega Protein, “the 300-pound gorilla in the room,” as Wellfleet, Mass., officials call it. The company, which has a fleet of 10 vessels and eight spotter planes working in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake, has done a superb job of protecting its interests, greasing the palms of elected Virginia officials, packing legislative hearings in Annapolis and mounting a public relations campaign that included a video endorsement by the executive director of ASMFC, Vince O’Shea.
Omega grinds up menhaden at its Reedville, Va., plant for use in heart-healthy Omega-3 products, pet food and cosmetics. Its operation employs about 300 people, which makes it a big player both locally and in Richmond, the state capital.
In a four-page letter to ASMFC, Omega and 41 other commercial interests urge the commissioners to “resist any calls to rush forward precipitously, ahead of schedule, with the development of any new management scheme.”
Rush ahead? Really?
In 1967, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission urged the governor and General Assembly to authorize a study “of the effect on the menhaden fishery operations on recreational fishing in Virginia” in time for the 1970 legislative session. Nothing really came of it, but the first red flag was raised—by Virginia.
Four decades hardly seems to be rushing to conclusions.
In an interview last month with The Public Trust Project, Dr. Rob Latour, a Virginia fisheries expert who led ASMFC’s 2010 menhaden stock assessment said: “There are lots of flags within the stock assessment that cause concern…the total abundance predicted by the stock assessment is the lowest on record from 1954-2008. How can it be the lowest ever and still be healthy or not overfished?”
How, indeed.
But Omega has a new posse of allies: commercial fishermen from Maine to North Carolina who supply the lobster fleet with bait.
With overfished herring being placed off-limits while the stock is rebuilt, bait boats are likely to substitute menhaden.
If ASMFC didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to take on Omega by itself, why should anyone think it can summon up the courage to take on commercial interests from nine states?
But if the commissioners are ready to forge ahead without the latest science to protect striped bass, how can they in good conscience and with plenty of alarming numbers in hand deny menhaden protection that really means something?
Comments
Anyone who cares about the marine environment should first read this fine article and then let the ASMFC know that you are outraged by their failure to protect menhaden, the most important fish in the sea.
Posted by: H. Bruce Franklin | July 30, 2011 2:31 PM
ASFMC should protect menhaden.
Posted by: Randy Fertel | July 30, 2011 4:30 PM
Quoting Goode, 1884, "History of Aquatic Animals" Section I, p. 575: "In estimating the importance of the Menhaden to the United States, it should be borne in mind that its absence from our waters would probably reduce all our other sea fisheries to at least one-fourth their present extent."
Posted by: William Burgess Leavenworth | July 31, 2011 12:41 PM
Stock Status – Concern – The coast– wide Atlantic menhaden stock is not overfished, but was found to be experiencing overfishing. This is based on a corrected version of the 2010 Atlantic menhaden stock assessment (a mistake was found in the model code of the original 2010 Atlantic menhaden benchmark stock assessment). Originally, overfishing was not occurring and the fishing mortality rate (F) was slightly below the threshold. After the correction was made to the stock assessment, F is now slightly above the threshold for 2008 (terminal year). Population fecundity was above target; therefore the stock is not overfished. Commercial landings in North Carolina have decreased because there is no longer a menhaden reduction plant in the state.
In ten years of assessments (from 1999 to 2008), overfishing was found to have occurred only in the last year -- and then, by a very small amount -- 0.004 over what is known as the fishing mortality threshold. To put this in perspective, it means that the industry was estimated to have overfished the threshold by 0.4 percent during the 2008 season.
A lot of the stock assessment is based on landings and landing do not always coinside with stock size. also the herring stock is not overfished it was stopped because it exceeded it,s haddock bycatch which is small compared to the overall haddock stock size which is also not overfished or anywhere near being overfished.
Posted by: mark phillips | August 1, 2011 9:20 AM