December 12, 2012 — The following is an excerpt from James Drake's Outdoors column "Deciding the fate of menhaden" published on Southern Maryland Newspapers Online:
Last year, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission began a process for possibly setting a practical catch limit for menhaden. Friday, the commission will meet in Baltimore to determine the future of this fishery.
Menhaden are small, oily, bony fish that are of no culinary interest to humans. They are however of keen importance to striped bass, sea trout, bluefish, osprey, great blue herons and a host of other wild creatures who depend upon them for food.
Often referred to as “the most important fish in the sea,” menhaden are a primary food source for many predators and a healthy menhaden population is indeed of acute interest to us. Without them, the fish we do care about will have little to eat and those game fish populations will then suffer.
Read the full story on Southern Maryland Newspapers Online
Read a letter to the editor in response to the article here