Forage fish such as menhaden and sardines are being overharvested for health supplements, aquaculture, and animal feed, posing ecological and economic threats.
Now the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is considering reducing the menhaden harvest, and a California bill would require regulators to account for species' value as prey, a move toward an ecosystem-based management approach.
You need forage fish to turn plankton into food for bigger fish. Take out the forage fish, and the whole food chain falls apart. This story isn’t sexy: people don’t sport fish for sardines. But we rely on these fish to feed — literally — the boom in aquaculture. Environmentalists see aquaculture as a means of reducing open sea fishing. But to feed those fish, we need open sea fishing.
Rough accounting: Looking at forage fish as merely a protein base is crude, but it highlights the value they have in both the biological and socioeconomic ecosystems.
Hard math: Managing fisheries, whether by species or by an ecosystem-based approach, involves counting fish. And counting fish is not easy, particularly due to the cyclical nature of some forage species.
Read the full article at This Week in Earth
Analysis:
The article is incorrect in stating that menhaden are overfished, and it overstates its importance as a forage species. The most current available data by the ASMFC concludes that the menhaden population in the Chesapeake Bay is not overfished. In the past ten years, the menhaden population had only experienced overfishing once in the past 10 years.
Menhaden's value as a forage fish is also overstated by the article. The Virginia Institute of Marine Science, as part of its ChesMMAP survey, has analyzed the diet of several marine species. In several notable species, including striped bass and bluefish, menhaden was found to make up less than ten percent of their diet. While the prevalence of menhaden in the diet will fluctuate, the survey seems to suggest they are not irreplaceable.