December 3, 2012 — As is often the case when serious resource management decisions are about to be made, conservationist see the sky as falling, and recreational anglers are quick to blame commercial angling for all their bad days of fishing. Commercial interest will no doubt want to kick the can down the road and do nothing, fearing any dramatic change in harvest could cause dire economic consequences for their employees and bottom line. They could be right. And perhaps there are more menhaden than we think. The only real answer would come from in-depth studies taking a great deal of time, and boat loads of money—two things the ASMFC doesn’t have.
Although Omega Protein’s detractors are angry that the scientists got an audience, and frustrated that those representing an opposing view were not invited to weigh in, they have not offered a refutation to the evidence the scientists presented. Nor have conservationists heard the end of Omega Protein. Recently the company hired Dr. James Sulikowski of the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, to conduct an aerial survey at a cost of roughly $200,000. The survey spotted 17 million menhaden in approximately 50 hours of flight time. The majority of the schools were identified in the Long Island region of New York.
Company officials readily agree that this isn’t a great deal of fish. They argue, however, that the survey was conducted over a very short period of time and covers an expansive area. Ben Landry, director of public affairs for Omega Protein, says that the company is as desirous as any other stakeholder of a healthy menhaden population: The company’s very survival depends upon it. He believes that more data could help the ASMFC make a more informed decision, which is why Omega Protein sponsored the survey. “The peer reviewers pointed out a lack of available data on the adult population in the northern range,” Landry says, “and when no other entity came up with the funding, the industry stepped up to conduct the survey.”
Researchers sampled the schools of menhaden at sea and then sent them to the National Fish and Wildlife Service for aging. According to the study of the fish sampled, all were age 3 or older. Interestingly, 75 percent of the fish sampled were age 4 (61 percent) or age 5 (14 percent), an age class of fish that the current model assumes does not exist. Company officials contend that this strongly indicates that the biomass may be far greater than the model used by the ASMFC. Omega Protein is hoping that fisheries managers will take this new data into account when they consider new harvest restrictions. (Today Omega Protein is responsible for 80 percent of the menhaden harvested commercially; the rest are landed by small independent commercial anglers.)
Omega Protein believes that the data collected by the ASMFC are flawed and under-report just how many menhaden are available for harvest. Critics in the conservation community have dismissed these concerns. Indeed, ASMFC’s Technical Committee on Menhaden recently admitted that their data was flawed and that they discovered “retrospective patterns” in their latest assessment. These patterns suggest that the ASMFC’s latest assessment may have overestimated the rate of menhaden harvest while simultaneously underestimating the menhaden population. At a recent ASMFC hearing in Alexandria, Virginia, Ronald Lukens, Senior Fisheries Biologist for Omega Protein, testified that while not scientifically conclusive, the Omega Protein-funded study by Dr. Sulikowski indicates that the population of menhaden might be as much as two-and-a-half times larger than the ASMFC believes.
Harvest reductions that could be established by the ASMFC soon could make it harder for Omega Protein to remain a profitable business, and thus the company is eager to find alternatives to harvest reductions. The company has been roundly criticized by conservationists for pushing “industry-funded science.” None of those critics, however, has produced any evidence that would contradict Dr. Sulikowski’s initial findings. While Dr. Sulikowski’s study would need to be replicated for several years and over a larger region to be viewed as statistically valid, his findings do seem to bolster Omega Protein’s claims that the menhaden population is far larger than is generally thought.
Read the full story by Beau Beasley on MidCurrent