There are two reasons why I like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow: she likes to fish for striped bass and she’s an infrastructure geek.
Yet, she has not put the two together on her popular weeknight show despite the obvious connection.
Now’s the time, Rach.
Within the next few weeks, East Coast states will begin outlining the public comment process for a proposal to protect menhaden from commercial overfishing. For decades, humans have treated the bony, oily fish badly, overharvesting them in 34 of the last 52 years to the point where the population is at a historic low.
That’s bad news for stripers, which are having problems of their own and really don’t need a depleted food source on top of filthy water and a nasty fatal disease that has attacked half of the adult population in the Chesapeake Bay.
Forty percent of the East Coast’s menhaden begin their lives in the Chesapeake as do more than 75 percent of striped bass, the kind Maddow likes to catch when they migrate up to Massachusetts in summer.
Menhaden are a vital part of the infrastructure for a sustainable striped bass stock, just as building bridges and roads and replacing old water pipes are necessary parts of a functioning America.
Yet, attempts to protect menhaden, and by extension striped bass, have been thwarted for almost a decade by Omega Protein Corp., which is the only entity still fishing for menhaden in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake. Maryland prohibited the practice years ago.
Old Dominion politicians protect Omega and the 300 jobs at the fish processing plant on Virginia’s Northern Neck in extraordinary ways. In return, they have received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.
Read the rest of the article from The Baltimore Sun here
Analysis: While the article is correct in stating that menhaden have been overfished for 32 of the last 54 years, it is incorrect in implying that menhaden is currently overfished. The most recent Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) assessment, issued in 2010, said that menhaden is not overfished and that overfishing was not occurring. In addition, the ASMFC has only reported menhaden overfishing in two (1998, 2008) of the previous twelve years.
The article is incorrect in asserting that Omega exerts almost total control over menhaden fisheries policy; the ASMFC is the ultimate arbiter of these decisions. Omega's politcal contributions have also not bought it undue influence; last cycle, Virginia taxi drivers contributed more to politcal campaigns than Omega.
Further Reading:
Sun writer overstates threat to menhaden