Little fish like menhaden are of vital importance to marine ecosystems and the ocean food chain.
View our infographic to learn more about this fish, and take action by asking the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to restore the Atlantic menhaden population to a healthy level.
View the graphic at Pew Environment Group.
Analysis: The graphic, part of Pew's menhaden campaign, leaves out several important facts about menhaden and the overall health of the fishery. First, Pew claims that safe fishing targets have been missed "for the past 50 years." However, this statistic is misleading and does not accurately reflect the level of fishing and its impact on the fishery. A more relevant statistic would be the number of times the stock has been overfished, when the number of fish caught exceeded the mortality threshold. This has been an exceedingly rare occurance, having only occurred once in the last ten years, according to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. The article is also incorrect in stating that 75% of the Atlantic menhaden catch comes from the Chesapeake Bay, as the five-year average of coastwide landings from the Bay is closer to 52%.
Pew also uses the percentage of menhaden in the diet of bass and other species as a way to measure the menhaden population. However, this is misleading, as the diet of bass and other fish depend on a variety of factors that are unrelated to the menhaden fishery. These include water quality and the presence, number, and location of other feed species.