MOBILE, Alabama — A recent vote by federal officials to cut the menhaden harvest along the Atlantic Coast by 37 percent has focused new attention on the massive menhaden catch in the Gulf of Mexico.
The menhaden fishery is the largest harvest in the Gulf, with an annual take of about 1 billion pounds a year, or roughly 10 times larger than any other Gulf fishery, according to federal landings data.
The Atlantic fishery produced about half a billion pounds last year, the data shows.
The Atlantic Fishery Management Commission, which regulates fishing in federal waters on the East Coast, chose to limit the catch there, citing overfishing and a dramatic drop in the size of the menhaden population. Some scientific assessments concluded that the population was about 8 percent of historic levels on the Atlantic Coast.
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