Up until recently, a regional fisheries stock assessment concluded there were plenty of Atlantic menhaden — or at least enough to declare the species wasn't in peril from overfishing.
But recently, fisheries managers concluded they may have been wrong.
Certainly, there were and are plenty of menhaden eggs. The problem, they have discovered, is there is a breakdown in the population dynamics from the eggs to the fish.
So now, years after environmentalists and coalitions of recreational fishing groups and fish conservation organizations raised red flags about the fate of the menhaden, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is proposing limits designed to help the species rebound.
"Abundance has been lagging for the last few years," said Tina Berger, a commission spokeswoman.
Among the concerns, she said, is a growing interest in commercial harvesting of menhaden as a baitfish for more lucrative fisheries, such as lobstering.
Among anglers and state regulatorsthere are worries about this small fish at the bottom of the food chain.
Menhaden are the prey of species from large tunas to striped bass and bluefish. With a decline at the bottom of the food chain, there is concern about what happens to the species at the top.
The commission set a cap in 2005 on harvests in the menhaden reduction fishery — fish caught to be processed for oil and fish meal — in the Chesapeake Bay region because of concerns about a localized population decline.
But a recent analysis pointed to an increase in the catch there. That fishery takes the lion's share of the Atlantic coastal harvest and has been blamed by some for the coastwide decline in the population.
Read the full article at Delaware Online.
Analysis: The article gets several points about menhaden right that most other reports get wrong. It recognizes that the most recent assesment of the population concludes that there is not overfishing and that menhaden fecundity is high. It also recognizes that there are factors other than the commercial reduction fishery that put pressure on the menhaden population, and that the number of menhaden in the Bay will naturally vary from year to year.
However, there is significant debate on exactly how much menhaden contribute as filter feeders. A recent study by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science concluded that menhaden have little to no net impact on water quality.