Everyone knows the rhyme that begins for want of a nail a shoe was lost. From the loss of the shoe, the horse, rider, battle and then the kingdom were all ultimately lost.
Adults have been using that old poem for centuries to teach their children about the consequences of their actions. Let’s hope the same lesson isn’t lost on fishery managers when it comes to menhaden.
Bunker is like the nail and if lost, a lot of other species will follow. Most predator fish in our waters, like striped bass, bluefish, weakfish, tuna and others, rely on it heavily for food. And if the bunker disappear, all those fish disappear, and not only for recreational anglers, but for everyone who enjoys and counts on them for their livelihood.
The value of plentiful bunker has never been more clearly demonstrated than over the last several years when abundant schools of menhaden have produced a world-class striped bass fishery in New Jersey waters. It wasn’t that long ago that reduction boats operating off our shores decimated bunker schools and proved to anglers that no bunker meant no bass.
But bunker are in trouble. Stocks have been declining steadily for years.
In an effort to turn the tide and protect what has been widely called the most important fish in the sea, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) issued a range of options to increase the abundance of menhaden and has put them out for public comment.
The measures are contained in Draft Amendment V to the Atlantic Menhaden Fishery Management Plan. The measures will allow up to a 45 percent reduction in the annual menhaden harvest.
Read the full article at MyCentralJersey.com
Analysis: The article makes several erroneous claims about the menhaden (referred to in the article as bunker) fishery, the first being that the fishery is in decline and that the menhaden population is at dangerously low levels. However, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the body responsible for regulating the menhaden fishery, recently conculded that menhaden are not overfished. Overfishing had only occured once in the last ten years.
The article also overstates the importance of menhaden to the diet of fish species sought by recreational fisherman, such as striped bass, weakfish, and bluefish. While the exact prevalence of menhaden in these species' diets is difficult to determine, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) has been conducting a study of seveal species of Chesapeake Bay fish, and concluded that menhaden make up as little as 9.6% of striped bass diet, 3.1% of weakfish diet, and 11.6% of bluefish diet.