August 3, 2016 — The following was released by the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition:
Peter Baker, the Director of U.S. Oceans, Northeast for the Pew Charitable Trusts, argues in a recent article that fisheries managers should not raise the coastwide Atlantic menhaden harvest level (“10 Reasons to Maintain the Atlantic Menhaden Catch Limit in 2017”). But this recommendation goes against the last two years of menhaden science, which found in 2015 that the stock is healthy and sustainably managed, and this year finds that the quota can be significantly and sustainably raised.
Mr. Baker writes that “the [Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission] created the first coastwide catch limit in 2013 and set the allowable catch lower than the amount taken in preceding years in order to help menhaden rebuild.” In fact, the cuts were made to address overfishing that turned out never to have existed. The quota cut was instituted following a flawed stock assessment in 2010 that underestimated the health of the menhaden population, leading to an unnecessarily strict quota. Contrary to that assessment, menhaden was, and remains, a healthy and vibrant stock.
The numbers are not better now because cuts allowed the stock to rebuild, but rather because the earlier numbers were inaccurately low and have been corrected in the most recent assessment. The more recent, accurate ASMFC assessment, released in 2015, conclusively found that menhaden was “neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing” – in other words, the stock is sustainable and successfully managed.
Scientists with the ASMFC Menhaden Technical Committee recently gave regulators further evidence in favor of a quota increase. In a series of simulations – 9,000 to be precise – the Technical Committee analyzed what would happen if the menhaden quota was raised by various increments, up to a 40 percent increase. Their conclusion: there is a zero percent chance of overfishing occurring should the quota be increased.
Mr. Baker also questions the ecological effect a quota increase would have. Menhaden play a role in the food chain, with juvenile menhaden—menhaden from ages 0-1—serving as food for larger predators. Commercial fishermen do not fish for juvenile menhaden, a fact supported by the available data.
Additionally, Mr. Baker alleges that striped bass and weakfish populations are diminished because they have a lack of menhaden to consume. But striped bass and weakfish are susceptible to a wide variety of environmental factors, which regularly cause fluctuations in the population.
Lastly, Mr. Baker argues that the public supports the existing quota limitations based upon the results of online petitions with leading questions, funded and promoted by his organization. The accuracy of Pew’s campaigns notwithstanding, commercial fisheries are not managed by popularity contests.
Over the past three years, commercial fisheries and related industries have suffered lost revenue and workers have lost jobs. We now know that the unnecessarily low quotas were based on flawed data.
It is time to set quotas based on solid data and scientific review, not by demands made in well-funded media campaigns from the Pew Charitable Trusts and other special interest groups.
About the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition
The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition is a collective of menhaden fishermen, related businesses, and supporting industries. Comprised of over 30 businesses along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition conducts media and public outreach on behalf of the menhaden industry to ensure that members of the public, media, and government are informed of important issues, events, and facts about the fishery.