A Big Day Coming for a Little Fish

Showdown looms on menhaden harvest

It looks like the ASMFC is getting ready to make some changes in the menhaden fishery, coast wide, and the usual players are lining up in the positions:

...Commissioners are reacting, in part, to a review of its menhaden population reports by outside scientists. The peer review found that commissioners weren’t using a conservative enough approach to determining whether the population was healthy enough or whether it was overfished, Fegley said.

The fisheries commission’s Menhaden Management Board has an all-day meeting scheduled in Baltimore on Dec. 14 to decide what to do with the menhaden harvest. The changes will take effect for the 2013 fishing season.

The changes could include cutting the harvest by up to 50 percent and a range of options for how to split the harvest between Omega and the bait fishermen.

Environmentalist and conservation groups are pushing to protect menhaden from over fishing:

Among the groups advocating for harvest cuts: the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Pew Environment Group, the Coastal Conservation Association and the Maryland Saltwater Sportfishing Association.

Many advocates of cuts blame the declining menhaden population for a troublesome illness that afflicts rockfish. They believe that rockfish are more susceptible to the illness, mycobacteriosis, when they don’t have proper nutrition.

A wonderful hypothesis; unfortunately one without a shred of credible evidence. It might be true, though...

They also point to all the other animals that eat menhaden, including big fish and birds of prey. “It’s sort of one of the keystone species that is at the foundation of the food web,” said Jud Crawford, a biologist for the Pew Environment Group. “It’s important, not just in the Chesapeake, which is an important nursery, but it’s important all up and down the coast.”

This is a more valid argument in my opinion.  I can remember huge schools of menhaden off the beach, being attacked by masses of striped bass and bluefish; I haven't seen the menhaden like that for years.

Meanwhile commercial fishing interests, especially Omega Protein, which harvests about 80% of all the menhaden on the coast was reluctant to buy into significant cuts in the harvest:

Omega is cautioning a go-slow approach.

Cuts too deep could cause layoffs or a shutdown at Omega’s plant in the small town of Reedville on Virginia’s Northern Neck, warned Omega spokesman Ben Landry. Landry said significant changes should be delayed until the fisheries commission gets a better report on the health of the population, called a stock assessment, in two years. In the interim, Omega would go along with minor cuts, perhaps 10 percent, Landry said. “That may be characterized by some as kicking the can down the road, but I don’t see it that way,” Landry said.

Rather, he sees that as being responsible, especially with jobs on the line. Omega, which is often on its own in menhaden discussions, has more support this time around. A nonprofit called Saving Seafood has joined the cause, as has the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.

The one thing I believe you can absolutely count on in fisheries management, is commercial fishermen overfishing a resource. It's not an evil thing, it's just that short-term interests trump long-term interests every time.  A fish in the net is worth a million in the sea, and all that...