On August 3, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) voted overwhelmingly to send a suite of options out for public comment which will protect menhaden and rebuild their population.
With Omega Protein Corporation, the company that targets menhaden in Chesapeake Bay and grounds up millions of pounds of menhaden for commercial use, and the Virginia politicians who have for years objected to curtailing Omega Protein’s operations, it has not been a “walk in the park” for the ASMFC to get from the tentative steps in 2005 to cap commercial menhaden fishing in the bay, to now admitting menhaden are in trouble and actually doing something about it.
"Now, the hard work begins,” said Lynn Fegley, a Maryland fisheries biologist just moments after the ASMFC voted to send the suite of options to protect menhaden and rebuild the population out for public comment.
That decisive action was greeted with grins and applause from audience members, many of whom had sat through years of hearings, hoping for the best, but always going home empty handed.
“We got what we wanted. Now the public will have a chance to do something for menhaden,” said Ken Hinman of the National Coalition for Marine Conservation. “They’ve given us the opportunity to put a lot more menhaden in the water.”
Menhaden, a small, oily fish, is a primary food for striped bass, bluefish and other fish. About 40 percent of the East Coast striped bass come from the Chesapeake Bay and about 80 percent of the coast’s striped bass start their lives in the same waters. Menhaden have been overfished in 32 of the last 54 years. The stock is at its lowest point in recorded history.
The ASMFC debate centered around five proposed options, ranging from status quo – an option that would have continued overfishing – to reducing the harvest by as much as 45 percent from the 2010 levels.
Read the full statement from the Rhode Island Saltwater Anglers Association
Analysis: The article makes several inaccurate claims, the common misconception that the menhaden population is overfished. While they are correct in noting that menhaden had been overfished in 32 of the last 54 years, they fail to note that menhaden had been overfished only once in the past 10 years, and the ASMFC concluded that the population was not overfished.
The article also overstates the prevlence ofmenhaden in striped bass diet. An ongoing study by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science concluded that menhaden can make up as little as 9.6% of their diet.