GLOUCESTER, Va. — March 26, 2013 — Rob Latour of the College of William and Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science will explore long-simmering issues surrounding Atlantic menhaden, their commercial harvest and the recreational fisheries that target their predators at an After Hours lecture this Thursday evening.
Latour’s lecture follows the General Assembly’s recent vote to reduce the commercial catch of Atlantic menhaden in Virginia waters by 20 percent, bringing Virginia in line with other states along the Eastern seaboard in a coast-wide management plan adopted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission in December.
Latour is a member and past chair of the menhaden technical committee for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the body charged with management of menhaden populations along the East Coast. He has worked with colleagues to determine menhaden abundance in the Bay, to quantify the role that menhaden play in filtering water and sustaining predators, and to better understand the process by which young menhaden are "recruited" into the adult population.
Read the full article at the Virginia Gazette