CHESAPEAKE BEACH, Maryland — November 1, 2012 — Fishermen and conservationists sparred Thursday over how much to cut back the commercial catch of Atlantic menhaden along the East Coast to rebuild an ecologically and economically important fish population.
Members of conservation and recreational fishing groups called for a reduction of 25 percent to 50 percent in the commercial harvest of menhaden, pointing to scientists' warnings that overfishing was depressing their number to near-historic lows.
"For decades now, people have been taking too many of these fish, and now it's time to pay back," said Ken Hastings of Mechanicsville.
But a representative of unionized fishermen working in a Virginia fleet that nets 80 percent of all the menhaden caught urged making only a minimal cut, warning that jobs are at stake and there's still great uncertainty about the fish's status.
"There may have been a time when it was overfished, but it's not being overfished now," contended Ken Pinkard of Reedville, Va. A third-generation menhaden fisher and vice president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 representing the 300-worker Virginia fishing fleet that processes the fish, Pinkard urged making no more than a 10 percent cut until scientists could be certain how low the population is.
"We know we're overfishing, but we don't know how far," said Lynn Fegley, deputy fisheries director for Maryland's Department of Natural Resources, who presided over the hearing.
Read the full story in the Baltimore Sun