Saving Seafood

MAINE: State reverses course, leaves menhaden fishery open

February 21, 2020 — Keenly aware of a looming bait shortage, Friendship lobsterman Chad Benner decided last fall to invest $15,000 to buy the custom-made net needed to join Maine’s growing menhaden fishery in 2020.

He planned to use some of the menhaden, also called pogy, to bait his lobster traps and sell the remainder to lobster fishermen on the hunt for an affordable alternative to Atlantic herring, which is hard to come by since its depleted numbers triggered steep cuts in how much herring can be caught.

But Benner’s plan was put in jeopardy last month when Maine announced that it wanted to place a two-year freeze on the menhaden fishery, closing it to newcomers while the state enacted a licensing system and made a pitch for a bigger share of the East Coast menhaden quota.

“I put my money down back in November, and now they are saying I can’t go fishing?” Benner said on Tuesday to state lawmakers who oversee the Maine Department of Marine Resources. “I’ve got a kid to support, and a family. I won’t even be able to sell (the net) because nobody could get a license.”

Stories of those who had hoped to jump into menhaden fishing, and pleas from lobstermen in search of affordable bait, persuaded state lawmakers to keep the menhaden fishery open while the state works out details of its proposed licensing system.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

VIRGINIA: Last of Its Kind, Fishery Faces Reckoning in Chesapeake Bay

February 11, 2020 — For a guy who left school after 11th grade, George Ball figures he has the best-paying job available on this rural stretch of Chesapeake Bay shoreline.

He catches a fish called Atlantic menhaden, used to make fish oil pills and farm-raised salmon feed, and earns about $50,000 a season, as much money as some college graduates.

“There ain’t a whole lot of jobs around here for a person like myself, except for landscaping or something like that,” said Ball, who comes from a long line of black fishermen. “Starting over would be treacherous.”

He may have to, though.

Ball works for Omega Protein, a company facing increasing government restrictions amid criticism that it could be disrupting the Chesapeake Bay’s food chain. Last year, Omega Protein exceeded catch limits in the Chesapeake by more than 30%, prompting the Trump Administration to threaten a moratorium in Virginia waters.

The firm’s sustainability certification from the influential Marine Stewardship Council is now under review. And environmental groups, sport fishermen and some state lawmakers have grown louder in their calls to further restrict — if not shutter — the firm’s operations in the bay.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New York Times

ASMFC Atlantic Menhaden Board Prepares to Move Forward with Menhaden Ecological Reference Points

February 7, 2020 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Commission’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board accepted the results of the SingleSpecies and Ecological Reference Points (ERPs) Assessments and Peer Review Reports for management use. The single-species assessment indicates the stock is not overfished nor experiencing overfishing relative to the single-species reference points established in Amendment 3. However, the ERP assessment indicates that the fishing mortality reference points for menhaden should be lower to account for menhaden’s role as a forage fish. In order to consider moving forward with the use of ERPs for management, the Board tasked the ERP Workgroup with producing several scenarios to explore how different fishing mortality assumptions for the other predator and prey species in the ERP model (i.e., bluefish, weakfish, spiny dogfish, and Atlantic herring) might affect the menhaden ERP fishing mortality target and threshold. The Board will review these analyses and take up the issue of formally adopting ERPs in May at the Commission’s Spring Meeting.

“On behalf of the Menhaden Board, I commend the ERP Workgroup and the dozens of state, federal, academic, and ASMFC scientists for their countless hours of dedication to this formidable task,” stated Board Chair Nichola Meserve. “The Board has long recognized the importance of Atlantic menhaden as a forage fish for a variety of predators as reflected in its setting of conservative harvest limits for menhaden and its emphasis on the development of ERPs as one of its highest priorities for managing the species. The ERP assessment is an impressive body of work and a huge step towards fully realized ecosystem-based fishery management. Although there is still much more work to be done, the ERP assessment provides managers with a critical tool in setting harvest targets for menhaden in an ecosystem-context.”

Under the traditional single-species reference points, Atlantic menhaden are neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing. Population fecundity, a measure of reproductive capacity (i.e., number of mature eggs in the population), has been above the single-species threshold since 1991 and above the single-species target in 20 of the 27 years since then, including 2017. Fishing mortality (F) has remained below the single-species overfishing threshold (0.6) since the mid-1970s, and below the single-species overfishing target (0.22) since the mid-1990s. Fishing mortality was estimated to be 0.11 in 2017. Although the ERP assessment indicates that the F reference points should be lower than the single-species reference points, it also showed that the conservative total allowable catch set for the 2018 to 2020 fishing seasons is consistent with the ERP F target in the example management scenario presented to the Board.

Read the full release here

Science Center for Marine Fisheries Releases Evaluation and Summary of Latest Atlantic Menhaden Assessments

February 4, 2020 — The following was released by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries:

Dr. Steve Cadrin, Professor at the School for Marine Science and Technology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and past President of the American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists, has completed an evaluation and summary of the latest Southeast Data, Assessment, and Review (SEDAR) Atlantic menhaden stock assessments.  Dr. Cadrin’s evaluation and summary was commissioned by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCeMFiS).  SEDAR completed two assessments in January, a traditional single-species benchmark assessment, and a first-of-its-kind ecological reference point assessment.

Read Dr. Cadrin’s evaluation here

Among other conclusions, Dr. Cadrin’s evaluation and summary finds that, according to the peer-reviewed assessments, the menhaden population is healthy, with menhaden fishing mortality remaining low. Atlantic menhaden was certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council in 2019. When comparing the two assessments, Dr. Cadrin notes that the single-species assessment “is the best scientific information available for fishery management.”

The evaluation and summary of the Atlantic menhaden assessments was one of the 2020 projects recently approved by SCeMFiS, which is part of the National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers program. The review was commissioned to provide a non-technical summary of the two 400+ page Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) menhaden assessments, so that menhaden fishery stakeholders would have, in an easily-comprehensible format, the information needed to support the best path to science-based management of the fishery.

Single-Species Assessment Remains Best, Most Reliable Information Available

Dr. Cadrin evaluated and summarized both the traditional, single-species menhaden stock assessment, as well as the new assessment that includes a multispecies focused analysis of menhaden and species which prey upon menhaden as part of their diet. This effort is a key part of the ASMFC’s efforts to transition to ecosystem-based fisheries management.

“The single-species assessment includes much more information on size and age composition, fishery selectivity, and recruitment variability than the multi-species models that were developed, but all models provide similar perceptions of menhaden stock trends since the 1990s,” writes Dr. Cadrin.

Other notable points by Dr. Cadrin include the improvements that the single-species assessment made in getting more accurate measurements of menhaden natural mortality, and the assessment’s conclusion that menhaden fishing mortality remains low, while the estimate of the current stock size is high.

Lower Menhaden Fishing Would Not Help Overfished Striped Bass

Dr. Cadrin’s evaluation and summary of the ecosystem-based assessment focuses in part on how it modeled the relationship between menhaden and striped bass. Most notably, he observes the assessment finds that, due to current overfishing and the overfished status of striped bass, decreasing the menhaden harvest would have little impact on striped bass stocks.

“At the current rate of fishing mortality on striped bass, there is little change in the long-term expectation for the striped bass stock from fishing menhaden at a lower rate than the single species target. Therefore, there appears to be negligible benefit to bass from fishing menhaden lower than the single species target,” Dr. Cadrin writes.

The assessments are the culmination of a two-year effort to gather and analyze available data for Atlantic menhaden from the fishery-independent sampling programs of the Atlantic states, commercial purse-seine reduction fishery, and commercial bait fishery.  All those who worked on the single-species assessment and the ground-breaking ecosystem assessment – the SEDAR 69 Panel, the Atlantic Menhaden Technical Committee (TC), the Stock Assessment Subcommittee (SAS), the ASMFC Ecosystem Reference Points Work Group, the Center for Independent Experts (CIE), the technical reviewer and the review panel chair — deserve credit for the completion of this task.

Both assessments will be discussed at this week’s ASMFC meeting.

About SCeMFiS:
SCeMFiS utilizes academic and fisheries resources to address urgent scientific problems limiting sustainable fisheries. SCeMFiS develops methods, analytical and survey tools, datasets, and analytical approaches to improve sustainability of fisheries and reduce uncertainty in biomass estimates. SCeMFiS university partners, University of Southern Mississippi (lead institution), and Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, are the academic sites. Collaborating scientists who provide specific expertise in finfish, shellfish, and marine mammal research, come from a wide range of academic institutions including Old Dominion University, Rutgers University, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, University of Maryland, and University of Rhode Island.

The need for the diverse services that SCeMFiS can provide to industry continues to grow, which has prompted a steady increase in the number of fishing industry partners. These services include immediate access to science expertise for stock assessment issues, rapid response to research priorities, and representation on stock assessment working groups. Targeted research leads to improvements in data collection, survey design, analytical tools, assessment models, and other needs to reduce uncertainty in stock status and improve reference point goals.

Members of SCeMFiS include:

  • Atlantic Capes Fisheries………………………………. Massachusetts, New Jersey
  • Bumble Bee Seafoods…………………………………… New Jersey
  • Garden State Seafood Assn……………………….. New Jersey
  • LaMonica Fine Foods…………………………………….. New Jersey
  • Lund’s Fisheries……………………………………………….. Massachusetts, New Jersey
  • NFI Clam Committee
  • NFI Scientific Monitoring
  • Northeast Fisheries Science Center
  • Omega Protein………………………………………………….. Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia
  • Sea Watch International…………………………….. Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey
  • Surfside Seafood Products………………………… New Jersey

ASMFC 2020 Winter Meeting Final Agenda & Meeting Materials

January 22, 2020 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The final agenda and meeting materials for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s 2020 Winter Meeting are now available at http://www.asmfc.org/home/2020-winter-meeting; click on the relevant Board/Committee name to access the documents for that Board/Committee. For ease of access, all Board meeting documents have been combined into one document: Main Meeting Materials. Not included in the Main Meeting Materials are the two Atlantic menhaden benchmark stock assessments, which are available at Single Species Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Report and ERP Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Report. Separate links to those reports can also be found on the meetings page at the Atlantic Menhaden Board header. Supplemental materials will be available at http://www.asmfc.org/home/2020-winter-meeting on January 29.

Board meeting proceedings will be broadcast daily via webinar beginning at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, February 4thand continuing daily until the conclusion of the meeting (expected to be 12:30 p.m.) on Thursday, February 6th. The webinar will allow registrants to listen to board deliberations and view presentations and motions as they occur. No comments or questions will be accepted via the webinar. Should technical difficulties arise while streaming the broadcast the boards/sections will continue their deliberations without interruption. We will attempt to resume the broadcast as soon as possible. To register, please go to https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3853611638258510347.

As a reminder, the guidelines for submission of written comment for issues for which the Commission hasNOT established a specific public comment period (i.e., in response to proposed management action) are as follows: 

1.   Comments received 3 weeks prior to the start of a meeting week will be included with the main meeting materials.

2.   Comments received by 5:00 PM on the Tuesday immediately preceding the scheduled ASMFC Meeting (in this case, the Tuesday deadline will be January 28, 2020) will be distributed electronically to Commissioners/Board members prior to the meeting and a limited number of copies will be provided at the meeting.

3.   Following the Tuesday, January 28, 2020 5:00 PM deadline, the commenter will be responsible for distributing the information to the management board prior to the board meeting or providing enough copies for the management board consideration at the meeting (a minimum of 50 copies).

The submitted comments must clearly indicate the commenter’s expectation from the ASMFC staff regarding distribution.  As with other public comment, it will be accepted via mail, fax, and email.

Omega Protein signals intention to exceed Chesapeake Bay menhaden cap

September 13, 2019 — Omega Protein, which recently attained MSC certification for the Atlantic menhaden fishery, has signaled it will likely exceed a cap for the species in the Chesapeake Bay.

The cap was initially suggested by the Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission (ASMFC) in 2006, and was modified in 2012 to a 87,216 metric ton (MT) quota. However, in 2017, the ASMFC recommended cutting the cap by over 40 percent to 51,000 MT, a decision that Omega Protein objected to.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Omega wins sustainability certification for menhaden fishery

September 6, 2019 — Omega Protein’s Atlantic menhaden fishery has been certified as sustainable under Marine Stewardship Council standards.

The certification this week comes after a final approval by an independent adjudicator and successfully ends a two-year effort by Omega Protein.

A news release by Omega Protein noted that independent auditor SAI Global recommended the menhaden fishery be certified in March following a review based on 28 standards that measure the sustainability of the stock, efforts to minimize environmental impacts and the effectiveness of its management.

Read the full story at Fredricksburg.com

Omega Protein Atlantic Menhaden Fishery Achieves MSC Sustainability Certification

September 4, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Omega Protein’s Atlantic menhaden fishery was granted certification against the Marine Stewardship Council standard for sustainable fishing.

After two years of a thorough review by, SAI Global, an independent auditor, and detailed stakeholder input, the certification was achieved.  Products that are displayed with the MSC blue label allow consumers to have a peace of mind when purchasing the product as it shows the fish was sourced sustainably.

˜When we started this process in the Spring of 2017, we were confident that our Atlantic menhaden fishery could meet the high bar for MSC certification,” said Bret Scholtes, CEO of Omega Protein. Now that our fishery is officially certified, consumers around the world will know the work our fishermen do every day to ensure our products come from a sustainable, responsibly harvested resource.”

NOAA highlighted the menhaden as one of the most effective fisheries in the world due to its minimal bycatch. The fishery is the second largest in the country, sitting behind only Alaska pollock. Recent stock assessments also show that the species is not being overfished as well.

During Omega Protein’s MSC sustainability criteria testing, they performed well as they had above-average scores in every category, with the best scores coming in the environmental impact and management categories.

“Congratulations to Omega Protein on achieving certification,” said Brian Perkins, Americas Director for the Marine Stewardship Council. “The certification signifies a dedication not only to sustainable menhaden fishing and to safeguarding marine ecosystems, but supporting the hardworking fishermen, processors, and everyone else who depend on the fishery for their livelihoods.”

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Atlantic Menhaden achieves MSC certification

September 3, 2019 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

Atlantic Menhaden caught by Omega Protein have been granted certification today against the Marine Stewardship Council standard for sustainable fishing. The certification comes following more than two years of detailed independent review by conformity assessment body, SAI Global, and extensive stakeholder input.

Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) are small, oily fish that are caught commercially in a reduction fishery and a bait fishery. They appear in estuaries and coastal waters from northern Florida to Nova Scotia. While considered unfit for direct human consumption, menhaden caught via the modern purse seine reduction method are used in fishmeal and fish oil for human and animal nutrition, due to their high natural concentration of healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Menhaden are also valuable as bait for fishermen targeting other commercially valuable species, such as lobster.  The Gulf of Mexico menhaden fishery is currently in assessment with Omega Protein and Daybrook Fisheries jointly requesting the assessment.

“Congratulations to Omega Protein on achieving certification,” said Brian Perkins, Americas Director for the Marine Stewardship Council. “The certification signifies a dedication not only to sustainable menhaden fishing and to safeguarding marine ecosystems, but supporting the hardworking fishermen, processors, and everyone else who depend on the fishery for their livelihoods.”

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Menhaden is “one of the most selective, and effective fisheries”[i] with minimal bycatch. Between the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, the U.S. menhaden fishery is the second largest in the country by weight, trailing only Alaska pollock. Most recent stock assessments of Atlantic menhaden confirm that neither species is undergoing overfishing or being overfished[ii].

“Omega Protein is appreciative that the sustainable Atlantic menhaden fishery has now been certified against the most rigorous sustainability standards of the Marine Stewardship Council,” said Omega Protein President and CEO Bret Scholtes. He continued, “The menhaden fishery has continuously operated in Reedville, Virginia since the 1870s and the population of menhaden remains robust and abundant. When buyers purchase seafood products with the blue MSC label, they can be sure they come from a sustainable fishery that has met the MSC Fisheries standard. This certification will differentiate our fishmeal and oil products from competitors on the global market.”

Stakeholder input is a critical part of the MSC fisheries assessment process and includes an objections process which allows for detailed scrutiny and transparency in the application of the MSC Fisheries Standard. Assessment includes a formal objections procedure to provide an orderly, structured process by which concerns about certification decisions can be lodged, reviewed and resolved, fairly and transparently by an independent adjudicator. The Atlantic Menhaden fishery assessment included several objections from registered stakeholders and involved the oversight of an independent adjudicator to ultimately determine if the determination by SAI Global should be upheld.

The MSC standard was established in 1997 and is the only wild caught seafood standard and ecolabeling program to meet United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) guidelines as well as meet Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative (GSSI) benchmarking criteria. The standards used to evaluate fisheries have been developed in deliberation with scientists, industry, and conservation groups, and reflect the most up-to-date fisheries science and management practices.

The MSC fishery standards are based on three core principles that every fishery must meet:

  1. Sustainable fish stocks: Fishing activity must be at a level which ensures it can continue indefinitely.
  2. Minimizing environmental impact: Fishing operations must be managed to maintain the structure, productivity, function, and diversity of the ecosystem.
  3. Effective Management: The fishery must comply with relevant laws and have a management system that is responsive to changing circumstances.

The Atlantic menhaden fishery is certified through 2024 and can enter reassessment after the five year period. During the five year certification, the fishery must undergo annual surveillance audits in order to ensure their ongoing compliance with the MSC’s requirements.

For more information click here

MSC certifies Atlantic menhaden fishery as sustainable

September 3, 2019 — The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has certified the Atlantic menhaden fishery as expected, Omega Protein, the Houston, Texas-based division of Canadian seafood giant Cooke Inc. that applied for the certification, announced on Tuesday.

The decision follows a favorable ruling by an independent adjudicator against challenges by several NGOs, as earlier reported by Undercurrent News, and concludes a two-year effort by Omega.

“When we started this process in the Spring of 2017, we were confident that our Atlantic menhaden fishery could meet the high bar for MSC certification,” said Bret Scholtes, Omega Protein’s CEO. “Now that our fishery is officially certified, consumers around the world will know the work our fishermen do every day to ensure our products come from a sustainable, responsibly harvested resource.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Read the MSC statements here and here