Saving Seafood

Learning About Menhaden: A Journey to Reedville

January 27, 2017 — The following is excerpted from an article by Emily Liljestrand, a master’s student in the University System of Maryland’s Marine Estuarine Environmental Sciences program. It was published Tuesday by Maryland Sea Grant:

Atlantic menhaden, though completely unpalatable to all but the most desperate diners, can be found in many commercial products. They are processed into omega-3, fatty-acid-rich nutritional supplements as well as aquaculture feed and fertilizer. People have utilized them for hundreds of years. The name “menhaden” even comes from the Native American word “munnawhatteaug,” which means “that which fertilizes.”

To get from this one-foot-long, oily, bug-eyed creature to the myriad of products we use them for requires several steps of fishing and processing. Most of which we got to witness first-hand on our trip to Reedville.

We were welcomed by the Omega Protein staff who guided us to a cozy conference room where we watched a video that demonstrated the fishing operation. Delightful as it might have been, having nine students and faculty go out on a fishing vessel that can often spend days offshore is a bit impractical.

But in the video we got to see the whole fishing process. Spotter planes take off across the Chesapeake Bay and nearshore Atlantic waters, looking for the telltale sign of a menhaden school – darkened bubbling waters where menhaden were being targeted by predatory fish and sea birds. Pilots can estimate with a high degree of accuracy not only the size of a school but also the average size of menhaden within that school.

The fishing vessel charges onto the scene and once in position, deploys two smaller seine boats that together use a single net to rope up as much of the school as they can. Once the bottom “purse string” gets pulled, it’s only a matter of hauling everything up onto the larger vessel and/or vacuuming menhaden into the hold. If done efficiently, the whole process may take no longer than half an hour.

Our guided tour around the on-shore facility in Reedville showed us how the processing continues onshore. The school of menhaden (or multiple schools, collected over several days) are deposited into a large holding vat and cooked at extreme temperatures. This procedure breaks down the fish and creates a sort of menhaden “slurry.” Through a series of heating, cooling, and further chemical processing, the lighter liquid oil gets separated from the harder, denser meal.

Omega Protein told us about its efforts to make its processing operations sustainable. It uses recycled/reclaimed water extracted from the menhaden themselves as a cooling agent, which has saved about 18 million gallons of water annually, and safely disposes of nitrogen byproducts. Omega’s fossil fuel consumption has dropped by 80 percent since 2012 thanks to several plant renovations.

Read the full story at Maryland Sea Grant

Virginia trying to preserve its working waterfronts

December 12, 2016 — Working waterfronts in coastal Virginia are under increasing threats from sea-level rise, subsidence and loss of marine habitat. And the desire to live on the water sometimes clashes with the tradition of working the water.

Earlier this year, Virginia Beach oyster farmers made headlines when they were confronted by waterfront property owners over the number of cages they were putting down in waters used not only commercially but for recreation.

And it’s not an urban problem. Homeowners on the western branch of the Corrotoman River in rural Lancaster County are challenging aquaculture applications there and applying for riparian rights in an effort to block new farms.

“It’s the same as Virginia Beach on a much smaller scale,” said Ben Stagg, who manages shellfish leases for the state. “It’s the same argument: ‘We don’t want somebody right outside our door. We use this area, our kids swim out here, we don’t want a bunch of cages.’ This issue is percolating up statewide.”

Now, after four years of collaboration, working waterfront stakeholders from the Eastern Shore to the Northern Neck have come up with ways to alleviate conflict and to preserve Virginia’s nearly 600 working waterfronts and their commercial fishing heritage.

Of those, 123 are located in the four counties of the Northern Neck. That includes one of Virginia’s oldest and largest industry, Omega Protein Inc.’s menhaden fishing operation in Reedville, which contributes about $88 million to the state’s economy.

Read the full story at the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star

Big changes in the air over little menhaden

December 5th, 2016 — Big changes are being weighed for Atlantic menhaden, the little, oily fish that no one eats but that stirs such passion. At least one of the possible shifts could reverse recent increases in the allowable commercial catch.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates near-shore fishing from Maine to Florida — including the Chesapeake Bay — has invited public comment on several questions about future management of the menhaden fishery at hearings all along the coast. Sessions in the Bay watershed begin Monday, Dec. 5.

The most important issue under consideration involves setting new “reference points” regulating the catch of menhaden that would account for their value to other fish and predators — not just their commercial importance. But the commission also is weighing whether to shake up how the total catch is distributed along the coast.

Though generally not caught to be eaten, menhaden are netted in great numbers for processing into animal feed and health supplements, and for use as bait to catch crabs, striped bass and other fish. They are the largest catch, by weight, in the Bay. The small waterfront village of Reedville, VA — home to the menhaden fleet of Omega Protein Corp. — ranks sixth nationwide in fish landings, by weight, after a handful of ports in Alaska and Louisiana.

But menhaden are also an important food source for other fish, including striped bass, and for predators such as osprey, bald eagles, whales and dolphins. Conservationists, recreational anglers and many biologists have long expressed concerns about the impact of the commercial menhaden catch — especially Omega’s — on the availability of forage for other species, leading to intense debates over fishery management.

In 2012, the Atlantic States commission imposed a first-ever coastwide catch reduction of 20 percent for menhaden after a scientific assessment concluded they were overfished. A followup study using new models and information concluded last year that the earlier assessment was wrong. The commission has responded by twice ratcheting up annual catch limits, with a 6.5 percent increase approved in October, allowing for 200,000 metric tons to be caught coastwide in 2017.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal 

The real reason why you’re suddenly seeing whales in N.J. and N.Y. waters

November 28, 2016 — If you’ve spent any time walking the beaches or boating the ocean waters of New Jersey or New York in recent weeks, you’ve likely been treated to spectacle that has been a rarity in these parts for most of the past century or so: whales.

They’ve been seemingly everywhere.

Breaching just past the sandbars in Asbury Park.

Swimming past groups of surfers in Rockaway Beach.

Bumping into boats off Belmar.

And this week’s ultimate cetacean sensation: a humpback whale swam up the Hudson River for a photo op in front of the George Washington Bridge.

Besides inspiring a chorus of oohs and aahs, the increase in sightings is adding a blubbery new wrinkle to a raging debate over a far smaller fish: the Atlantic menhaden. It’s the menhaden, also known as “bunker” — clumsy, multidinous, slow swimming virtual floating hamburgers — that those whales are chasing.

Even as the whales were gulping down bunker along the coast of New Jersey, the ASMFC has been pushing the commercial quotas back up closer to pre 2012 catch levels. Last year, the catch limit was raised 10 percent, with the ASMFC citing data that showed bunker were not being overfished.

And, then, three weeks ago, the council voted to raise the commercial catch limits another 6.5 percent.

That move has been cheered by commercial fishing operations who argue the limits were never necessary and simply jeopardized an industry that employs hundreds of people from New Jersey to Virginia, where the largest menhaden processing operation, Omega Protein Corp, is located.

“The fact that there’s a lot of fish around has nothing do with reducing these quotas,” said Jeff Kaelin, spokesman for Lund’s Fisheries, a Cape May commercial fishing company that sells bunker as lobster bait. The increased number of whale sightings is simply the result of smaller fish growing to a larger size due to “environmental conditions.”

“The stock was not overfished,” he said. “It’s never been.”

Kaelin said the 20 percent coast-wide reduction translated into a roughly 50 percent cut for New Jersey companies that harvest bunker, because it shut down the fishery early in the year and put the state’s crucial fall harvest off limits.

“If the science says we need to cut back we will, but in this case we feel very strongly that we’re underfishing the stock,” he said.

Read the full story at NJ.com

RONNIE SHELDON: Menhaden aren’t being ‘decimated’

August 16, 2016 — The following is an excerpt from a letter-to-the editor in the Mississippi Sun Herald.

Lately, I’ve read several opinion articles about the menhaden fishery and problems with Omega Protein.

I’m a lifelong resident of Pascagoula and a sport fisherman. I have no connections or interests in Omega Protein, but most of my spare time is spent fishing for trout and redfish, and I typically fish the same area (Round Island) where Omega Protein fishes for menhaden.

I have no issue with menhaden fishing. Their industry provides hundreds of jobs and pumps millions of dollars into our local economy. Indirectly, their product helps provide food for many as animal feed.

Their bycatch is closely regulated and very small. I’ve never personally seen evidence of any bycatch dumped overboard.

In his “Menhaden haven’t been ‘researched’” (July 31) letter, Steve Shepard’s statement that “menhaden are being decimated by boats during the hot summer months” doesn’t seem to be viable. The commercial menhaden fleet has been operating in our area for 60 years now. If Omega Protein were to decimate the menhaden fishery, they would put themselves out of a job, so it’s not probable.

Read the full letter at the Sun Herald

KENNY HEBERT: CCA is telling fish tales about Omega Protein

April 20, 2016 — On April 2, the Sun Herald published an op-ed from the spokesman of the Coastal Conservation Association — Mississippi, F.J. Eicke (“A most important fish raises need for public scrutiny”), that was filled with more holes than a fisherman’s net. Sadly, time and time again, Mr. Eicke has demonstrated dismissiveness toward sustainable fisheries and the hardworking men and women of Mississippi’s commercial fishing industry.

A major contention offered by Mr. Eicke is that Mississippi’s resident menhaden stock is troubled. This statement is 100 percent incorrect and is little more than a scare tactic. There is no such thing as “Mississippi menhaden.” Due to their very nature — their biology and habitat — menhaden are a Coastwide migratory species, which is why menhaden stock assessments are conducted on a Coastwide basis.

As such, Mr. Eicke’s claim that the public “has no basis for assessing the catch in Mississippi waters” is nonsensical. Menhaden cross state borders routinely as they move around the Gulf. To assess the amount of menhaden in Mississippi waters at any given time is pointless, since, due to migratory patterns, the stock size would be completely different in subsequent days, weeks or months.

Contrary to Mr. Eicke’s claim that menhaden regulations are “minimal,” existing management has been successful in maintaining a sustainable fishery. According to the most recent, peer-reviewed Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission stock assessment, the menhaden stock is healthy: It is neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing. The same results have been consistent going back 20 years.

Read the full opinion piece at the Sun Herald

MISSISSIPPI: CMR denies Jackson County’s request for 1-mile menhaden fishing limit

April 20, 2016 — BILOXI, Miss. — The Mississippi Commission on Marine Resources denied Jackson County’s request to limit menhaden fishing to at least a mile off the county’s mainland.

The vote was unanimous and came after the commission listened to arguments from both sides of the issue.

On March 7, the Jackson County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to ask the state to limit menhaden boats to 1 mile offshore. The move would have closed 22 square miles of the Sound to commercial fishing by the company Omega Protein of Moss Point.

Both the Coastal Conservation Association and Omega Protein went before the CMR.

In the final vote, it came down to science and concern for industry.

Read the full story at the Sun Herald

VIRGINIA: Local clergy to bless the fishing fleet May 1

April 14, 2016 — A boat parade with commercial fishing boats, powerboats, sailboats, excursion craft, kayaks and rowboats will float up Cockrell’s Creek, to the ceremony site, reported Bob Bolger. All boaters in the area are invited to participate in the parade beginning at 3:30 p.m.

Capt. Linwood Bowis will lead the procession aboard the Chesapeake Breeze, followed by the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum’s Elva C.; a Virginia Resources Commission patrol boat, and Smith Point Sea Rescue 1. Omega Protein will be represented by the Rappahannock, captained by Leo Robbins.

The boat parade will begin at the mouth of Cockrell’s Creek and the Great Wicomico River, said Bolger.

The Rev. James B. Godwin will be the keynote speaker. The Rev. Godwin has served as the pastor of United Methodist churches in North Carolina and Virginia. He retired from Trinity UMC in Alexandria.

See the full story at the Rappahannock Record

MISSISSIPPI: ‘Nobody wants a menhaden’ mayor tells supervisors

March 21, 2016 — PASCAGOULA — Moss Point Mayor Billy Broomfield defended his city’s major industry, Omega Protein, to Jackson County supervisors on Monday.

He said the menhaden fishery would be hard hit if the county follows through with plans to ask the state to restrict menhaden fishing in the Mississippi Sound to one mile off the Jackson County coast. Harrison and Hancock counties already do that.

The restriction is in part to stop by-catch and overfishing.

Read the full story at Sun Herald

MISSISSIPPI: Jackson County supervisors vote to keep menhaden boats one mile out

March 7, 2016 — Jackson County’s Board of Supervisors decided Monday to have its meetings videotaped and posted for the public to see online.

Also on Monday, the board, in a split vote, decided to ask the state to restrict menhaden fishing to one mile off the Jackson County mainland.

A spokesman for Omega Protein, a commercial menhaden fishing operation out of Moss Point, tried to convince the board that it would hurt their $46 million-a-year industry, but county Supervisor Troy Ross said he sees it as a protection measure for fish in the Mississippi Sound.

Company spokesman Rick Schillaci told the board the Omega Protein already self-imposes a half-mile restriction in Jackson County and asked county leaders not to impose one mile.

“There is no real justification of you pushing us off,” Schillaci said, “And you’re going to send a message to businesses in Jackson County that this Board of Supervisors is not supportive of industry.”

He accused the board of bowing to recreational fishermen.

Read the full story from the Sun Herald