April 9, 2012 – IS ANYONE looking after all the little fishes in the sea? Yes, the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force is, and according to its new report a lot of other people ought to be taking an interest as well. Forage fish include such species as menhaden, herring, anchovies, and sardines. Their primary value to the ecosystem, Lenfest points out, is as food for larger fish.
That role is compromised, it says, by heavy commercial harvesting.
Of interest around here, out on the Northern Neck in particular, is the health of the menhaden fishery, because huge quantities are commercially harvested by Omega Protein Inc. for processing at its Reedville plant. There the fish become fish oil for dietary supplements and fish meal to feed livestock and farmed fish.
The Chesapeake Bay's menhaden population has declined significantly over the past 50 years, dropping from 90 billion in 1960 to 18 billion in 2010. Some of that can be charged to the Bay's environmental health; various other species have suffered as well due to poor water quality and decreased subsurface habitat.
But pressure on the fishery has also been applied by Omega Protein, which harvested 160,000 metric tons of menhaden in 2010. Omega's voracious appetite for menhaden has caused every state on the Atlantic coast–except Virginia–to limit or flat ban the company from systematically extracting menhaden from its waters.
There's a reason for Virginia's hands-off posture: politics. The company donated tens of thousands of dollars to Gov. McDonnell's inaugural committee in 2010 and to the Republican-leaning Opportunity Virginia PAC, and has given lesser amounts to lesser pols from both parties.
The result has been the perennial defeat–again during the recent 2012 session–of legislation that would take the management of the fishery out of the General Assembly's hands and put it under the Virginia Marine Resources Commission where it belongs.
Read the full article at Fredericksburg.com
Analysis: The article makes the claim that Omega Protein “pose[s] a threat to the health of the menhaden fishery and its role as a feeder of other Bay species.” This conclusion does not take in to account what the best available scientific data says about the impact of the commercial fishery.
The article notes that the menhaden population has declined since 1960, but it understates the influence that environmental factors have on the size of the menhaden population, while overstating the influence of the commercial fishery. The rate at which menhaden spawn has much more to do with environmental conditions than it does with mortality from fishing. Throughout the history of the fishery, menhaden recruitment (the number of menhaden that spawn annually) has shown little correlation with fishing mortality. While fishing mortality has remained relatively stable since the mid-1950s, menhaden recruitment has greatly fluctuated, with recruitment being poor in recent years.
The influence of environmental factors on menhaden stock size is reflected in the most recent menhaden stock assessment, conducted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC). The ASMFC concluded that the current level of fishing was not preventing the stock from producing the desired number of eggs, meaning that it was not overfished. Poor menhaden recruitment would thus not be due to the lack of spawners, but rather to unfavorable environmental conditions in the Bay.
The article also tries to tie the health of the menhaden stock to the alleged influence of Omega Protein over the Virginia legislature. While it is true that the Virginia legislature, rather than the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, regulates the menhaden fishery, it is inaccurate to suggest that this means the fishery is under-regulated. The legislature manages the fishery according to guidelines set down by the ASMFC. In recent years, the ASMFC has determined that menhaden are not overfished, and has managed the species accordingly. Suggesting that politics, rather than science, manages the fishery ignores the available data about the health of the stock.