July 26, 2016 — NORWALK, Conn. — For the second year in a row, whales have been spotted in the Long Island Sound, with sightings all the way in near Fairfield County. But why?
According to Joe Schnierlein, with the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, “They’re here for food. This is a smorgasbord for them.”
He’s referring to a fish called menhaden, also known as buffers.
“Right now, the entire western end of the Sound is loaded with them,” Schnierlein explained.
July 6, 2016 — DOVER, Del. — Delaware officials are hosting an Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission public hearing on proposed changes to the interstate management plan for Atlantic Menhaden.
Wednesday evening’s hearing in Dover involves a proposal to allow two licensed commercial fishermen to harvest up to 12,000 pounds of menhaden bycatch when working from the same vessel and fishing with stationary, multi-species gear, limited to one vessel trip per day.
Currently, the bycatch limit is 6,000 pounds per vessel per day.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Times
July 5, 2016 — BOONE, NC — Dr. John Whitehead, professor and chair of Appalachian State University’s Department of Economics, has been awarded $95,303 by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) to conduct a socioeconomic study of Atlantic menhaden commercial fisheries.
Whitehead will co-lead the project with Dr. Jane Harrison from North Carolina Sea Grant. The project is based on case studies within the industry intended to characterize the Atlantic menhaden commercial fisheries, including bait and reduction sectors and the fishing communities they support.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Atlantic menhaden constitute the largest landings by volume along the Atlantic Coast – that is, the amount of fish harvested from the sea and brought to the land. Menhaden rank second in the United States for landings behind only pollock on the west coast of Alaska.
“Menhaden stock is healthier than ever,” Whitehead said, “and the ASMFC is wrestling with how to allocate quotas across the Atlantic U.S.”
June 28, 2016 — The sharks are circling!
A bumper crop of bunker fish churning along the coast is drawing the ocean’s greatest predator closer than ever to Brooklyn’s beaches, anglers and naturalists say.
“That population (bunker) is very high along our shore, and that is bringing sharks and whales much closer to shore, bringing the predators much closer to the beach,” said captain John Calamia of Whatta Catch.
June 27, 2016 — Little did we know that one fish – not even edible fed generations of Lewes Delaware seamen and their families.
The menhaden fish is a fisherman’s fish, meaning schools of 1,000 to 100,000 provide the universal food of larger fishes and attract them to their spawning grounds.
In Delaware Bay and the shallow reaches of the Atlantic Ocean, these small fishes – under fifteen inches tops – attract larger fish which made their way to many a dinner table.
More importantly, the menhaden fish, scaly, oily and fleshy, provided the oil for the colonial streetlamps and most of the colonial economy prior to the whale oil industry taking off out of New Bedford, Mass.
This kept tiny Lewes, first town in the first state, well-employed and well-off. The shipbuilding industry took off in Lewes as early as the seventeenth century, to provide small boats that launched many a fisherman’s career.
June 24, 2016 — FISHING CREEK, Md. — Life is about to possibly get easier for menhaden fisherman in Maryland. Menhaden, a popular bait fish, are regulated by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, or ASMFC. Several years ago, an ASMFC report indicated that the menhaden stock was being overfished. However, a report that came out a year ago showed that the fishery was in fact strong. The ASMFC is now undoing some of the regulations it passed to protect the species.
It has been years since the ASMFC said that menhaden over fishing was occurring. One lawsuit and several years later, watermen are still feeling the effects of the regulations put in place to protect the species.
“When they cut us 20 percent, some of our buyers went to alternative bait like razor clams and the price of bait went up. They went somewhere else so it has really hurt our industry. We can’t sell as much as we were before,” said Boo Powley, a fifth generation waterman.
June 22, 2016 — In F.J. Eicke’s “Near-shore fishing for menhaden needs tighter regulation” letter (June 3), he blames the fishery for a recent fish die-off in Gulfport and Long Beach.
The best available science on the incident disputes Mr. Eicke’s claim. Scientists with the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources investigated the die-off, concluding the menhaden that washed up on the shore most likely died of natural causes.
Their conclusion was based on a number of factors, specifically the amount of dead fish, which given how low it was, is unlikely that a commercial fishing vessel is to blame.
June 3, 2016 — The following was released by the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition:
WASHINGTON (MFC) — On May 16, the Pew Charitable Trusts published an article (“Mid-Atlantic Council Poised to Take Historic Action for Forage Fish”), on their website, authored by Peter Baker, Director of US Oceans, Northeast, falsely claiming that “Many forage fish, such as … menhaden, are fished in large numbers for use in fish oil, bait, and livestock feed, with no limits on how many can be caught[.]”
The truth? Atlantic menhaden are actually closely monitored and responsibly regulated. It’s curious for Pew and Mr. Baker to claim there are “no limits” on the catch, since in a May 15, 2014 Pew story, “Atlantic Menhaden Catch Cap a Success,” Mr. Baker himself wrote that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) “voted into place a cap that reduced the overall catch of Atlantic menhaden by 25 percent from the previous year.”
It is not clear whether Pew has changed its mind, or if they are experiencing institutional amnesia. In their most recent release, they claim “at this scale, industrial fishing could dramatically reduce the numbers of forage fish, potentially destabilizing the entire ocean ecosystem.” Yet, two years ago, they stated that the “commissioners should be proud that that they’ve established an effective management system for the largest fishery on the Atlantic coast.” This is yet the latest example of misinformation from Pew regarding menhaden management.
Pew’s sudden forgetfulness notwithstanding, the fact is that rather than being unmanaged and unrestricted, the menhaden fishery operates under the responsible oversight of the ASMFC, which manages fisheries in state waters from Maine to Florida. The ASMFC sets coastwide harvest quotas for menhaden based on the best available science.
With the release of the most recent assessment of the Atlantic menhaden stock in 2015, the ASMFC found menhaden to be neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing. In another indicator of stock health, the assessment also found fishing mortality to be at an all-time low. Combined with the fact that fecundity – a measure of the stock’s reproductive ability – is at an all-time high, the science clearly supports the fact that menhaden are not only well-protected, but are well-positioned for the future. In fact, as testament to the successful efforts undertaken by menhaden fishermen to ensure stock health, in 2015 the ASMFC even raised the harvest quota by 10 percent.
These conclusions have also been supported by several independent organizations. In a report last year, the non-profit Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) rated menhaden as one of the best-managed forage fish species in the world. In their report, menhaden was cited as one of only four fish species to have improved its status from previous years. Corroborating SFP is a certificationfrom the third-party sustainability certifier Friend of the Sea, which independently rated Atlantic menhaden as sustainable.
The evidence is clear – menhaden is a healthy, well-managed stock, not the unmanaged fishery Mr. Baker claims.
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — There is a new plan on Long Island to prevent a repeat of last year’s massive fish die-off.
CBS2’s Jennifer McLogan reported it involves bunker – a species of fish used for bait – that are being captured alive in Riverhead as East End fishermen are looking to avoid another Peconic River fish kill.
“We are over half-a-million pounds,” Lenny Nilson of L&L Wholesale Bait said. “In three weeks we are seeing a difference.”
Nilson is using small seine netting as Will Caldwell and his team are using a 300-foot nylon net rigged to a system Caldwell invented just for this purpose.
“We are trying out best here. I am losing sleep over it because I don’t want to be wrong about this,” Caldwell of Hampton Bays said. “I think it is definitely working. Just keep up hope the bluefish don’t come in great herds.”
This time last year the river, bay and marinas chocked with dead bunkers, which became a biological and tourism nightmare.
May 26, 2016 — A monument honoring Northern Neck menhaden watermen, including spotter pilots, who died at sea will be unveiled and dedicated at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 28, at the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum, 504 Main Street, Reedville.
This project is a cooperative effort between the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum and the Kilmarnock Museum, said RFM director Shawn Hall.
More than 70 names of watermen who have perished while at sea are inscribed on the monument. Extensive research was conducted to establish the names. As new entries are identified, they will also be added to the memorial, said Hall.
The program will include a short talk on how the memorial came into being. Also, there will be a reading of the names inscribed with the traditional ringing of a ship’s bell, pealing once for each name, he said.