Management & Regulation

The following was released by the Pew Environment Group:

BOSTON, Nov. 9, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — New fishery management benchmarks for Atlantic menhaden, often called "the most important fish in the sea," were established today in an effort to increase its population to four times the current size. The measure was adopted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), the interstate body that governs the menhaden fishery, after an intensive two-month campaign led by the Pew Environment Group.

"Today's vote is a welcome step for a fish that hasn't caught a break since Dwight Eisenhower was president," said Peter Baker, director of Northeast Fisheries at the Pew Environment Group. "Scientists have warned that having too few menhaden in the water could result in disastrous impacts on the fish and wildlife that eat them."

During its meeting today, the ASMFC agreed with its scientific advisors and set more conservative fishing standards to help menhaden stocks recover. The fishery, the largest on the East Coast by weight, has exceeded the designated "safe fishing target" every year since 1960. As a result, the population is at less than 10 percent of historic levels.

"In looking at studies over the past few decades, we see declining amounts of menhaden in the diets of striped bass, ospreys, bluefish, and weakfish," said Holly Binns, director of Southeast Fish Conservation at the Pew Environment Group. "Saltwater fishing, whale watching, and bird watching — which rely on species that eat menhaden — generate hundreds of millions of dollars per year on the East Coast. The new benchmarks will help sustain our coastal economies and communities."

About three-quarters of the Atlantic menhaden catch comes from the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding ocean waters. Most of these fish are ground up and reduced to fish meal and oil for use as dietary supplements, fertilizer, farm animal feed, and pet food.

Read the full release at the Sacramento Bee.

Analysis: The article gets several facts wrong about the health of the menhaden fishery. For one, the article claims that the fishery has "exceeded the designated 'safe fishing target' every year since 1960." However, fisheries data collected by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) paint a substantially different picture. In their last assessment, they concluded that the menhaden fishery was currently not overfished. It also concluded that the fishery had only experienced overfishing once in the last decade, in 2008.

Similary, the claim that menhaden are at "less than 10 percent of historic levels" is also misleading. Menhaden are currently fished to around 10 percent of their Maximum Spawning Potential (MSP) which is not a historical measurement but an estimate of a theoretical unfished population. This is also not a sign that menhaden are overfished. Menhaden MSP has rarely risen above 10 percent, but, as a result of the high fecunity of individual menhaden, the stock has traditionally been able to rebuild itself at that level.

 

Boston, MA – Today, member states of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission elected Paul J. Diodati of Massachusetts as the new Chair of the Commission.

In assuming the chairmanship, Mr. Diodati spoke enthusiastically about his new position, "I am honored to be elected and look forward to working with my colleagues from the 15 Atlantic coast states, federal marine fishery management agencies, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, and the District of Columbia to ensure the continued conservation and management of Atlantic coast marine fishery resources."

"Robert Boyles has accomplished a great deal during his chairmanship," stated Mr. Diodati. "During his tenure, protection and management measures for the Commission's most contentious species greatly increased. Under his leadership, northern shrimp, Spanish mackerel, spot, and spotted seatrout all came under new management programs. The Commission worked closely with the New England and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Councils to address river herring bycatch in federal waters. Greater protection has been extended to diadromous species, such as shad and river herring, with the closure of state waters in the absence of approved sustainability management plans. A multispecies approach to management was advanced; the horseshoe crab Adaptive Resource Management Framework was developed and the Atlantic menhaden stock assessment included data on predator demands. The horseshoe crab trawl survey received funding through nontraditional sources, including the biomedical and commercial fishing industries. NEAMAP also saw increased funding, from ~$260k in 2008 to ~$1.1mil for 2012. During my two-year term, I hope to build upon these accomplishments, furthering the Commission's long-term vision for healthy, self-sustaining marine fishery resources by 2015, which in turn allows for healthy fisheries from these stocks."

Paul Diodati has nearly 30 years of experience in the field of natural resource management. He has been involved in Commission activities since the 1980s, serving on technical committees and the Artificial Reef Committee. He has served as an Administrative Commissioner since his appointment as Director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries in 2000, participating in boards and sections including those for striped bass, northern shrimp, and shad and river herring. As a former Chair of the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program Coordinating Council, Mr. Diodati played an instrumental role in the early development of the Program. He represents Massachusetts on the New England Fishery Management Council and serves as an ex officio member of the Stellwagen Bank Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council.

Republished with permission from SeafoodNews.com

 

 

 

 

 

Concerned that overfishing is destroying the ability of menhaden to reproduce, the commission that manages the Atlantic coast fishery voted Wednesday to sharply reduce the catch of the fish.

Tiny, oily menhaden are called the ocean’s most important fish by environmentalists because they provide food for essential fish such as striped bass and for birds such as osprey, bald eagles and brown pelicans. Without menhaden, environmentalists say, the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay ecosystems would come crashing down.

At a meeting in Boston, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted 14 to 3 to cut the amount of menhaden that can be harvested annually from 183,000 metric tons to 174,000 metric tons. The commission must now draft and vote on a plan to implement the new rule, which is likely to become effective in May 2013, spokeswoman Tina Berger said.

A single company, Omega Protein Corp., took 160,000 metric tons of menhaden — 80 percent of about 450 million fish harvested last year — off the coast of Virginia, the only state that permits industrial fishing of menhaden. The company crushes the fish into meal to feed livestock and farmed fish around the world.

Bait fishermen, who mostly sell to sport fishers, caught the rest.

Read the complete story from The Washington Post

 

 

 

 

 

States from Maine to Florida voted Wednesday to set new, strict limits on catching menhaden from coastal waters and the Chesapeake Bay, handing environmentalists and sports fishermen a major victory in how this important little fish is managed.

"This is great news for jobs, for our economy and for a society that values wildlife," Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said in a statement after the vote.

At a meeting in Boston culminating more than a year of scientific calculations, loud public hearings and more than 90,000 public comments, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission adopted targets and thresholds intent on restoring menhaden stocks coastwide.

Once implemented after another year of study and debate, the measures are expected to reduce harvests by up to 37 percent – cuts that Virginia officials say will be damaging to the menhaden industry centered in the Northern Neck town of Reedville and to watermen who catch and sell the oily fish as bait.

Read the complete story from The Virginian-Pilot

 

 

 

 

 

TITUSVILLE — Commercial fishing interests gathered at a seafood joint Tuesday to cast doubt on federal fisheries data and spell out the ripple effects a red-snapper ban and other fishing closures are having on the local economy.

“What I’ve seen in the past 10 years is the demise of our industry,” said Jim Busse, president of Seafood Atlantic at Port Canaveral, who’s watched longtime friends have to hang up their fishing gear. “I’ve seen them lose their houses. I’ve seen them get their trucks repossessed.”

Laurilee Thompson, owner of Dixie Crossroads Seafood Restaurant, hosted the event to talk to business leaders and politicians about the danger of new regulations, which fishermen say aren’t necessary or based on solid scientific proof. She pointed out that the day’s lunch was all locally caught seafood.

“Nothing here is imported,” Thompson said.

“I’ve seen overfishing, I’ve been part of it,” said Thompson, a former commercial angler, “and I can tell you now there’s not even 2 percent of the commercial fishing effort as compared to the late ’70s and ’80s.”

Read the complete article from Florida Today

 

 

 

 

 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a federal agency that oversees saltwater fisheries, has agreed to spend a year collecting information on alewives and blueback river herring to see if they require federal protection under the Endangered Species Act.

"There are 24 active municipal alewife and blueback fisheries in Maine," said Kate Taylor at Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC). Commercial harvesting will continue in Maine for now because the state has submitted a sustainability plan to ASMFC. Most other Atlantic states have banned fishing for alewives and bluebacks in freshwater because the stocks are not at sustainable levels.

Alewives and bluebacks are sea-run fish collectively known as river herring. Unlike the more common Atlantic herring, a marine species that lives its whole life in the ocean, river herring live as mature fish in the ocean and return to freshwater streams to breed.

The river herring fishery is one of the oldest documented fisheries in North America, dating back over 350 years in some areas, according to NOAA. At one time historic runs from the Carolinas to the Maritimes brought millions of fish right into the backyards of colonial settlers, according to Nate Gray, a fisheries scientist with the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

Read the complete story from The Free Press

 

 

 

 

 

Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler on Wednesday asked the interstate agency that manages the fishing of Atlantic menhaden to increase protection for the fish, which scientists say is an integral part of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is considering updates to its management plan for the menhaden and Gansler submitted comments to the commission requesting that the threshold for overfishing be nearly doubled from the current rate.

"The Commission's interstate fishery management plan … for the menhaden has so far failed to adequately protect the menhaden fishery, particularly from overfishing," Gansler said in his comments. "Despite menhaden's historic decline, the Commission has allowed menhaden to be fished down to 8 percent of their maximum spawning potential."

Gansler proposed that the threshold be increased to 15 percent of the species' maximum spawning potential.

Read the complete story from The Baltimore Sun

 

 

 

 

 

Federal regulators say it appeared that cod stocks were rebuilding, but new data indicates that the stock is being overfished again.

Just three years ago it looked like cod levels in the Gulf of Maine were rebuilding. But preliminary data just released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicates that the stock is being overfished again and cannot be rebuilt by the 2014 deadline set by fisheries managers.

This has led to concerns that the federal government could impose more fishing cuts. "Cod stocks that small boat fleets depend on is not where we thought is was," says Pat Fiorelli, spokeswoman for the New England Fisheries Management Council. "It's been reduced, for whatever the reason–probably be forced to take some kind of action, which is the horribly worrisome part."

Fishermen say they've been working hard to conserve fish stocks so they find it hard to understand why numbers are going down.

Read the story from Maine Public Broadcasting Network

 

 

 

 

 

A big fight is brewing over a little fish — a fish that no one wants to eat but that many regard as the most important in the sea.

Catch restrictions loom on menhaden, which is too unsavory to grace a dinner plate but much sought by commercial fishermen. They catch them in staggering numbers to be ground into animal feed, to extract their heart-healthy oils for humans and to be used as bait to catch other fish, including Maryland's iconic blue crabs.

Menhaden also play a vital role in the Chesapeake Bay's ecosystem, feeding on plankton and serving themselves as food for many of the fish, birds and animals that people do eat or care about.

"They're a keystone species," says biologist Paul Spitzer of Trappe. Besides feeding other fish, menhaden are a staple for seabirds such as ospreys, gannets and common loons. When the fish are scarce, he says, it affects the health and abundance of other creatures as well.

Now, driven by a warning from scientists that menhaden levels are perilously low, an interstate panel that regulates fishing from Maine to Florida is weighing a range of actions that could reduce the commercial harvest of the fish by as much as 45 percent all along the coast, including in Maryland.

The proposal, to be taken up Nov. 9 at a meeting in Boston of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, is being hailed by recreational anglers and conservationists alike, who've long voiced concerns about menhaden levels, and say other animals that depend on them for food, such as highly prized striped bass, are suffering from malnourishment.

"We fished the stock down many decades ago, and have maintained a heavy enough fishing pressure that we've held it at a fairly low level," said William Goldsborough, senior scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and one of three Maryland members on the fisheries commission. It's time to leave more menhaden in the water and give them a chance to increase, he said.

But the proposal before the commission has drawn pushback from commercial fishermen in Maryland and elsewhere, who contend the science shows there's no cause for alarm and any cutback will hurt an already diminished livelihood.

Read the full article at the Baltimore Sun.

Analysis: The article fails to make several points about the menhaden fishery. First, while it quotes several sources that claim menhaden areat "perilously low" levels, it obscures the fact that the past several years of fishing data collected by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) does not indicate any pattern of overfishing. The last stock assessment concluded that menhaden were not overfished, and, as mentioned in the article, the fishery is currently reaching its fecundity target. The article also refers to menhaden as at "8 percent of their historical level." This refers to their Maximum Spawning Potential (MSP) n estimate of a theoretical unfished population. Menhaden fished to 8% of their MSP is not unusual or by itself a sign of an unhealthy fishery; MSP has rarely risen above 10%, and at this level menhaden have traditionally been able to rebuild themselves.

There are also claims made by activists in the article that are in dispute, particularly the role of menhaden in the diets and overall health of other fish, most notably bass. While menhaden are a part of bass diets, they are not irreplaceable. Bass diets are influenced by a number of factors other than the level of fishing, including the location and prevalence of other species. Similarly, the article makes the claim that the lack of menhaden are responsible for mycobacteriosis in bass. However, this is much more likely caused by the "thermal niche/oxygen squeeze" phenomenon. Currently, runoff in the Bay has led to areas of oxygen depletion in the waters bass usually inhabit. This forces them to move to warmer waters where that they are not suited to, leading them to not feed properly and making them more susceptible to diseases.

 

 

BUNKER NEWS: “Calling any one fish the most important fish in the sea might seem a bit hyperbolic. But Atlantic menhaden is so essential to the health of the coastal Atlantic that it is called just that by fishermen and conservationists alike.” (Matt Tinning, executive director, Marine Fish Conservation Network)

“Managers at the Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission are finally responding to the public outcry to restore menhaden abundance by proposing new, more conservative fishing levels that would leave more menhaden in the water to play their vital ecological role.”

Tinning’s press release goes on to ask fishers to get involved and let their concern be known before the hearing and vote on Nov. 9. (Public comments can be submitted until 5 p.m., Nov. 2)

Captain Paul Eidman is also hoping you will take time to be heard on this important issue which affects us all. Eidman speaks in fair and well-balanced terms. He emphasized in an interview with me that the main focus of his group Menhaden Defenders is moderation.

As Tinning says, this fish is a mainstay of ecological balance and Eidman, a captain who fishes in the Raritan Bay area of NJ, is seeing what captains here in Cape May area have told me: Fewer peanut bunker to feed the stripers; fewer young; fewer spawning. This seems to be even more evident in the upper regions of the Northeast and the lower areas of the Chesapeake. “Every stage of development of the Menhaden is food for something.” Disregard for anecdotal evidence while waiting for better science to catch up, is a disaster in the making.

Captain Ray told me the schools of Menhaden used to be massive here and provided a tremendous food source. Plus, he added, they are algae feeders and help with water quality, especially in back bays and large areas like the Chesapeake Bay.
“Our back bays used to be boiling with what we call peanut bunker or baby Menhaden. We would see them early in the year and watch them grow from 1 inch to 5 or 6 inches. T

hey were all over the back bays and marina areas…Without this high protein food source for game fish many species have to look for other food sources so they have to eat the young of other fish or their own which isn't good of any species. When you take away one of the biggest food sources for game fish you find the game fish do not grow quite as fast and fat as they should. They turn to crabs and anything else they can find.”

According to Eidman, 80 percent of the bait fish used in New England, comes from New Jersey. A situation complicated by the depleted herring population. Local (Cape May) commercial fisheries now depend on Menhaden for lobster fishing.
Everyone has a stake in Menhaden. The November decision by the ASMFC is critical for all. You can post your comments on Eidman’s Web site www.menhadendefenders.org/

Read the full article at the Cape May County Herald.

Analysis: The sources quoted in the article rely almost exclusively on anecdotal evidence as a counterweight to the best scientific information currently available. The most recent assessment of the menhaden fishery by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) reaches a different conclusion; the menhaden population is judged to not be overfished, and overfishing only occurred once in the last ten years.