October 17, 2012 — There’s a battle brewing in Virginia over a mostly inedible, oily little fish: the menhaden. The first volleys were fired on Monday at a public hearing in Newport News about proposed interstate fishing regulations for menhaden.
First, a bit of background. Menhaden have been called “the most important fish in the sea,” mostly because of the role they play in the food chain. They eat phytoplankton (which causes algae blooms) and are in turn eaten by a wide range of animals, including striped bass, crabs, and various bird species. There’s also a range of human uses for menhaden; you can find them in everything from fish oil tablets to fertilizer to bait. Accordingly, an industry has arisen whose main goal is to harvest the menhaden, grind them up, and sell to other industries. On the east coast, this industry’s sole member is Omega Protein, based in Reedville, Virginia. Because other states on the east coast have banned or limited purse seining, the primary method Omega uses to capture menhaden, Omega Protein only operates out of Virginia.
Notably, menhaden is also the only fish in Virginia (and the entire east coast) to be regulated directly by the General Assembly and not by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC). The General Assembly has exclusive authority to pass regulations for the menhaden fishery in Virginia. However, menhaden is also regulated by an interstate organization called the Atlantic Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) which has the federally-backed power to pass fishery regulations for the entire eastern seaboard. If Virginia does not implement ASMFC regulations in the state, the federal government has the power to shut down the entire menhaden fishery until Virginia comes into compliance.
So, the stakes here are very high for the fish, the fishermen, and the state.
Monday’s public hearing was sponsored by the ASMFC, though run by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. ASMFC was soliciting comments regarding the proposed Amendment 2 to the menhaden fishery management plan. After a rundown of the complex suite of options under consideration, the floor was opened for comments.
Two conflicting themes quickly emerged. On the one side, represented mostly by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and their members, commenters advocated for stricter fishing limits, allocating more of the limit to bait fishermen rather than the commercial fishery, and mandatory reporting for menhaden catches. On the other side, represented mostly by Omega Protein employees and clients, commenters urged the Commission to consider the economic impact of any new regulations and stated several times that the menhaden population wasn’t in trouble at all.
Read the full story at the William and Mary Environmental Law Society Blog
Analysis: While the article concludes that “there is a lot of evidence supporting the environmentalists’ position” that menhaden are in decline and need to be subject to stricter catch limits, there is much in the available science on menhaden that provides a different view of the health of the fishery.
Both the 2010 and 2012 menhaden stock assessments concluded that menhaden are not overfished, meaning that the stock was producing enough eggs to sustain itself. Rather than being “headed for a potential crisis,” as the article claims, the 2012 assessment concluded that the population’s abundance was 40 percent above the level where it would be considered overfished.
In discussing lower menhaden recruitment, the article does not mention climate and environmental factors, two major, if not dominant, influences on the growth of the stock. Environmental conditions in the Chesapeake Bay, which have fluctuated widely over the history of the fishery, produce circumstances that are alternately favorable and unfavorable for menhaden recruitment. For example, conditions in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when menhaden biomass was high, proved favorable; conditions since have been considerably less so. The relationship between menhaden and climate is recognized both by NOAA, which writes, “menhaden recruitment appears to be independent of fishing mortality and spawning stock biomass, indicating environmental factors may be the defining factor in the production of good year classes,” and the ASMFC, which concluded that fluctuations in menhaden abundance may be, “almost entirely driven by non-fishery sources.”
It’s also important to recognize that references to menhaden as “the most important fish in the sea,” are not scientific designations. They are instead derived from the title of a book on menhaden,The Most Important Fish in the Sea, by Rutgers University English professor H. Bruce Franklin. There is no scientific evidence supporting the claim to any fish being “most important,” and it more reflects the views of Dr. Franklin and his supporters, rather than any scientific consensus.