November 6, 2012 — Today is the day to let your voice be heard in support of measures to rebuild overfished menhaden all along the Atlantic coast. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) is now accepting public comment – through November 16th – on Amendment 2 to its Interstate Menhaden Plan, which covers fishing from Maine to Florida.
The amendment includes long-promised catch reductions for the industrial reduction fishery, limits fishermen and conservationists have been working on for years so we can restore menhaden to coastal waters to support striped bass and a myriad of other dependent predators that need this small but critically important fish to survive.
Analysis: While the National Council for Marine Conservation makes several references to menhaden as being overfished, the best available scientific data says otherwise. According to the 2010 menhaden stock assessment, the last assessment considered to be reliable, menhaden are not currently overfished. This means that, according to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), the stock is producing enough eggs to sustain itself. Overfishing, where the number of menhaden caught exceeds the mortality rate determined by the ASMFC, occurred only twice in the 15 years between 1993 and 2008. In 2011, the Commission adopted a new, more conservative baseline for determining overfishing going forward. Based on that new “reference point,” the Menhaden Board determined that overfishing also occurred in 2011 based on harvest increases, the new reference point, and apparent lack of stock growth. Due to adoption of the new reference point and model uncertainty, no overfishing determinations have been made for 2009 and 2010.