My opinions on stripers are known; even though the population is considered to near an all time high, that's not what I am experiencing. The large schools of stripers that used to ply our waters are largely gone. If they're doing well, they're doing it somewhere else. Ospreys? They seem happy enough, except that the eagle pester them for free food.
Arguing for drastic harvest cuts, the conservationists pointed to the latest ASMFC stock assessment, which they said indicated that the menhaden stock is at an all-time low of just 8 percent of an unfished stock. They cited studies that examined the stomach contents of striped bass and ospreys, which traditionally feast on menhaden. These studies suggest that the study subjects were either starving or forced to eat other marine life, like blue crabs, to survive. Sadly, nearly half of Chesapeake Bay stripers appear to have lesions, which some scientists believe are caused by malnutrition.
This is the problem with fishermen (both recreational and commercial), they're short sighted. If things were good last year, we should always be allowed to take twice as many the next, regardless of what science says.
Commercial fishermen, whose livelihoods would be affected by the ASMFC's decision, did not sit idly by to let their jobs be regulated into oblivion. They stood respectfully in yellow T-shirts and eventually marched silently around the room as the ASMFC deliberated. Some had traveled nearly seven hours by bus to the meeting to make their case to commissioners. Jim Kellum, a widely respected commercial fisherman and owner of Ocean Baits in Virginia, said, "Last year our industry had one of the best landings in history. How in the world can the ASMFC believe the population of menhaden is crashing when we are landing more fish with fewer boats and less effort than ever before?"
Even if the population fluctuations are largely driven by non-fishery reasons (say, changes in climate with the Atlantic Oscillation, or even pollution, or black magic) it's insane to keep fishing them at the levels they did when the population
So what does the science say? Ironically, the ASMFC's own scientists believe that their latest stock assessment is not a reliable means of predicting the stock's biomass. Menhaden are apparently producing enough eggs to replenish the stocks, but oddly, those eggs aren't hatching in the numbers regulators would like to see — and no one knows why. Some have argued that pollution plays a significant role in the depletion of this important baitfish, while others claim that significant fluctuations in the menhaden population are normal. In fact, the ASMFC stock assessment says that "population fluctuations are almost entirely driven by non-fishery sources."
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