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.