November 19, 2012 — The following is an excerpt from the opinion piece "Being thankful for Atlantic menhaden," by Captain Dave Monti, originally published on East Bay RI News:
It’s Thanksgiving already, and we have a lot to be thankful for in Rhode Island. We were clobbered by hurricane Sandy but did not experience the loss of life and property that New York and New Jersey experienced. By no means am I belittling our losses in Westerly, Misquamicut and along our southern coastal shores. Our residences suffered major losses and we need to continue to help them.
However, overall it was a good year for recreational fishing in our bays and ocean. Fishing this year was better than it has been in a number of years. The striped bass run in the bay was moderate, but the bass fishing continued to be great offshore around Block Island, the fluke season was good and we really had an outstanding scup and black sea bass fishery this year. All this was capped with a surprisingly good fall tautog season that we’re still experiencing.
One species I am forever grateful for is Atlantic menhaden, as it serves as a food source for so many other fish including striped bass. If you fish Rhode Island coastal waters, offshore or in Narragansett Bay, now’s the time to voice your concerns about this important fish species as the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlanta Menhaden Management Board meets Dec. 14 in Baltimore, Md. to consider regulations.
In additional to being a primary food source for many other species of fish, menhaden serve as roving filters, converting algae into energy and thus reducing nutrient loads in bays and covers. An adult menhaden, through its unique filtering gills, is able to process up to four gallons of water per minute — a million gallons of water every 180 days. Multiply this by the number of menhaden in any given area and this is an amazing amount of water being filtered; a reduction of nutrients means fewer algae blooms and ultimately more oxygen for all fish.
The story was published on the East Bay Rhode Island website in the Cranston Herald and on Rhody Beat
Analysis: Captain Dave Monti’s Thanksgiving op-ed, “Being thankful for the Atlantic menhaden,” while generally positive, cited several incorrect and incomplete facts about the menhaden fishery.
To allegedly ensure the future of the menhaden stock, Captain Monti encourages his readers to pay attention to upcoming actions by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), “To make sure this species is here to stay and will not continue to be overfished.” However, according to the 2010 and 2012 ASMFC menhaden stock assessments, menhaden are not overfished, meaning that the stock is producing the target number of eggs to sustain itself. In fact, the stock is producing 40 percent more eggs than an overfished population. Overfishing has actually only occurred twice in the last 15 years for which there is reliable data (1993-2008), most recently in 2008 by only 0.4 percent.
Captain Monti overstates the ecological role of menhaden, claiming that, “menhaden serve as roving filters, converting algae into energy and thus reducing nutrient loads in bays and covers.” However, recent studies have called that role into question. In a 2010 study, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) concluded that menhaden, rather than feeding on algae, feed mostly on zooplankton, and that their contribution to improving water quality is negligible. The VIMS study showed that adult menhaden lose their ability to filter algae out of the water with age, and may have a detrimental impact on water quality due to their release of nitrogen into the water.
Although conservation of marine resources like menhaden is essential, encouraging action based on misleading evidence, even when backed with good intentions, does not assist fisheries management. Fishery management must take all stakeholders into consideration, and produce a resulting decision that strikes a sustainable balance between the concerns of environmentalists and the needs of fishermen whose livelihoods are at stake.