November 3, 2016 — Meeting in Bar Harbor, Maine, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted to allow a 6.5% increase in the harvest of menhaden. The fish are used to make animal meal and health supplements and as bait to catch crabs, striped bass and other fish. But they’re also considered a vital link in the marine food chain and a staple in the diet of striped bass and other predators. For all of those reasons their management stirs intense passion.
The commission, which regulates near-shore fishing from Maine to Florida, had deadlocked in August over whether to raise the allowable menhaden catch next year. It began its final meeting of the year discussing the need to set some limit or there would be no cap at all in 2017.
Fishing interests have been pushing for a substantial catch increase, arguing that recent studies showed there were plenty of fish in coastal waters and no risk of taking too many. Yet, conservationists urged the commission to stay the course saying the fisheries panel should first figure out how many menhaden are needed as food for other fish and then look at reallocating the commercial harvest to spread the catch around more.
This is the latest round in a debate that goes back to December 2012, when the commission cut the catch 20% coastwide after a stock assessment indicated the fish population was overfished. It was the first time the commission set a coastwide harvest limit for menhaden.
A subsequent study finished last year, which used new models and new information, contradicted the earlier one finding that menhaden weren’t overfished. Further analysis by the commission’s technical advisory committee suggested the fish were abundant enough that catch limits could be raised by as much as 40% without any risk of taking too many.
Commercial fishing interests pressed for an increase of at least 20% from the current coastwide cap of 188,000 metric tons, arguing that it would ease the economic pinch that fishermen have had to endure the last four years because of a cut they said the science showed was unwarranted. But conservationists resisted, pointing out that the commission already raised the catch limit 10% last year in response to the more optimistic stock assessment and that it had not yet figured out how many menhaden should be left uncaught to feed other species.
Bill Goldsborough, senior fisheries scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and a member of Maryland’s delegation to the commission, appealed for the panel to hold the line on the harvest cap. There are signs menhaden are increasing in number and showing up in waters off New England where they haven’t been seen in years. But while surveys show increases in juvenile fish along much of the coast, sampling has not found a similar upswing in the bay, one of the primary nursery areas.
