Menhaden — Atlantic

"Researchers hoped to find evidence of a healthy new generation of ospreys when they checked 84 nests of the fish-eating bird in mid-June... at the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay. They found only three young. It was the lowest reproductive number in more than 50 years of monitoring... the latest evidence in a long-term decline in breeding success due to the bay-wide depletion of the bird’s favorite food — Atlantic menhaden. Hundreds of millions of the little, silvery fish play a crucial role in the ecology of coastal waters all along the Eastern Seaboard, feeding bigger fish like striped bass and weakfish; marine mammals including whales and dolphins; and birds like bald eagles, great blue herons and brown pelicans... This year, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission... increased the amount of menhaden allowed to be caught... Across the whole Atlantic coast, the agency authorized a catch of around 1.2 billion fish. Critics of the commission say the removal of such large quantities of fish from the bay is degrading the ecosystem in which menhaden play a central role, making it harder for species like osprey and striped bass to survive."

“The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted to amend the way it currently manages Atlantic Menhaden and committed to taking a big picture approach. Over the next two years they will determine how many Menhaden need to be left in the ocean to maintain the populations of larger fish, seabirds, and whales, so that they can take this into account when setting the catch limit. [Currently managers only consider how many Menhaden are needed to sustain its population]. This is an extraordinary step forward and we should celebrate! But before we pop the corks, it’s important to note that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission decided that in the meantime they would give in to fishing industry pressure and increase the catch limit. They voted to increase the catch limit by 10% for the 2015 and 2016 seasons. To put this into context, two years ago managers decreased the catch limit by 20%. So they gave the fishery half of this back.”

“The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources on Thursday unanimously approved HB2254, which would reduce the annual menhaden catch by 20 percent and would give the Virginia Marine Resources Commission some authority to manage the oily bait fish.”

“Omega’s fleet of sixty-one ships and thirty-two spotter plans annually captures billions of menhaden. At the company’s five production facilities in Virginia, Louisiana, and Mississippi, these hundreds of thousands of tons of fish are converted into industrial commodities —hence the term ‘reduction.’ The menhaden are ‘reduced’ into oil, solids, and meal. The oil from their bodies is pressed out for use in cosmetics, linoleum, health food supplements, lubricants, margarine, soap, incesticide, and paints. Their dried-out carcasses are then pulverized, scooped into huge piles, containerized, and shipped out as feed for domestic cats and dogs, farmed fish, and, most of all, poultry and pigs.”

“The chicken industry is currently the largest user of menhaden meal, followed by turkey, swine, domestic pet food, cattle, sheep and goats, and, more recently, aquaculture.”

“No one eats them. Yet they are the most important fish caught along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, exceeding the tonnage of all other species combined. These kibble of the sea fetch only about 10 cents a pound at the dock, but they can be ground up, dried, and formed into another kind of kibble for land animals, a high-protein feed for chickens, pigs, and cattle. Pop some barbecued wings into your mouth, and at least part of what you’re eating was once menhaden.”

“In the few years since the 2001 law took effect, there has been a remarkable resurgence of menhaden along the northern New Jersey shore, along with a spectacular abundance of striped bass and bluefish feeding on them.”

“Just as your body needs its livers to filter out toxins, ecosystems also need those natural filters. Overfishing menhaden is just like removing your liver.”

“‘The industry overfished their own fishery and they destroyed it themselves. Andthey’re still at it.’ Referring to himself and the other spotter pilots, he [Hall Watters]said ‘We’re the worst culprits,’ because the airplane meant that ‘the menhaden hadno place to hide.’ ‘If you took the airplanes away from the fleet,’ he said, ‘the fishwould come back, but the company would go out of business because they couldn’tfind the fish.’”

“You have to scratch your head and wonder, since we set quotas for bluefish and tuna, why we won’t set quotas for this crucial part of the food chain...not to regulate a fishery that’s to important is to ask for trouble. I wonder whether we are about to see something go wrong unlike anything we have ever seen.”

“By the end of the twentieth century... the estimated number of sexually matureadult fish has crashed to less than 13 percent of what it had been four decadesearlier...adult fish had not been sighted north of Cape Cod since 1993.”

“In 1996, about 36% of U.S. Atlantic coast commercial fisheries landings by weight were Atlantic menhaden.”

“One by one, all the state north of Virginia banned the reduction fleet from theirstate waters — all except New Jersey...So at last, in 2001, New Jersey enacted alaw... banning the reduction industry from fishing within the three-mile limit of itsjurisdiction. This leaves Virginia and North Carolina as the only eastern states thatallow menhaden to be fished for conversion into industrial products.”

“What could a restored menhaden population contribute toward reversing eutrophication and saving the Chesapeake? A single adult menhaden is able to filter at least four gallons a minute, 240 gallons an hour, 5,760 gallons a day. A landmark study in 1967 calculated ‘that is all the menhaden landed in Chesapeake Bay in one season were present in the bay at one time, they could filter all of the water in the Virginia portion of the bay and its tributaries twice in 24 hours.’ More recently, Sara Gottlieb estimated that before their decimation, the menhaden population of the Chesapeake had the ability to filter a volume of water equal to the entire bay in two days.”