November 13, 2017 — A proposal to boldly reshape how one of the East Coast’s largest fisheries is managed barely left the dock Monday before it was sunk by a flotilla of opposition.
The Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, named for a small but important fish caught by the hundreds of millions of pounds each year along the coast, opted to stick with the status quo rather than adopt a new plan that might have ushered in cuts in harvests.
The board is an arm of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and the larger commission is expected to ratify the decision at its meeting in Linthicum, Md., today.
Monday’s decision was cheered by representatives of Omega Protein Corp., whose fleet of vessels based in the Northern Neck town of Reedville catches most of the menhaden netted along the Atlantic. “It’s a good day for Omega,” said Ben Landry, a spokesman for the Houston-based company.
Environmental groups and recreational fishermen said they were disappointed. They’d been pushing for a regulatory framework that they say takes into account the needs of other species, from whales to striped bass to ospreys, that prey on menhaden.
But when the proposal to put that plan into motion, called Option E, was offered, it was quickly trumped by another, Option B, that basically keeps the management approach as is. Virginia’s delegation and all but a handful of the 17 others voted to kick Option E to the side.
Read the full story at the Virginian-Pilot