ASGA 2020 RECAP / UPDATE - Menhaden status
January 5, 2020
February 4, 2020
The American Saltwater Guides Association held its Annual Board Meeting at The Fly Fishing Show in Edison, NJ on January 25.
At the end of the meeting, the ASGA held a public session, during which policy updates were presented, outlining the current status of management around fisheries and species that the organization (and that we at Tightlined) are focused on, including some general outlook as to what we might run into in the coming year.
Here’s the update on Menhaden.
Menhaden are a bit different than the other fish we’ll cover, in the way that they are a keystone forage fish and not a predator, which comes in play in the way this species is manage.
First of all, let’s cover what this fishery comprises. Of the entire coastal quota, Virginia is allocated 70%, and all of it goes to Omega Protein. We’ve obviously covered Omega here in depth, but they run an industrial reduction fishery that turns menhaden into fish oils, animal meal and fish food for the salmon farms in the Pacific Northwest. Historically, they’ve been a U.S. company, but recently have been bought by Canadian-based Cooke Aquaculture, and the majority of their fishing takes place in and around the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, with other operations in the Gulf of Mexico around the Mississippi River Delta.
As for the harvest limits and ‘health of the stock,’ menhaden are not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. That said, that data is based on a single-species stock assessment (one that does not take the importance of that species to other species into account). Further, a few years ago there was a reduction in the quota for menhaden, and the resulting increase in population has spurred the consistent whale activity in the New York Bight and South of Long Island. When looking at the fish as a single species (i.e. if we were managing them solely based on keeping its population at a sustainable level), then apparently we have room to increase harvest by 40% and still only have a small risk of overfishing. That said, menhaden, maybe more than other species, are most valuable due to their role they play in the environment. Given that, managing them in reference to that role they play, using Ecological Reference Points (ERPs), is necessary to support both their population and the populations of the predators that eat them (pretty much everything).
Speaking of ERPs, the ASFMC is discussing the management of menhaden RIGHT NOW at their Winter Meeting, including the potential use of ERPs and discussion around a new stock assessment that came out a few weeks ago. While ERPs are the way forward, as they take the impact of species on their ecosystems into account, what these initial ERPs suggest as far as catch limits and impacts on other species might not be entirely accurate, and will need to be honed as more data is collected on each species. This is one reason we asked you to write a letter to your commissioners urging them to use ERPs but to NOT increase the quota at this point.
One specific issue with ERPs is that they have not yet been able to take localized depletion into account. Since they generally take the entire ecosystem into account, the impact of taking a high number of one species out of one area of the overall population is very hard to account for. With menhaden, we’re talking about the Chesapeake Bay, the largest and most important nursery on the east coast. Regardless of how many fish there are on the entire coast, when you take hundreds of millions of a keystone forage species out of any area, let alone one as important to striped bass and other predators as the Chesapeake Bay, there’s going to be a significant impact.
We’ll keep you posted on what happens / happened with the ASMFC today, but hopefully they listened, implemented ERPs and did not raise the quota for Omega. No matter what happens, Omega is not going to go away without a fight, so this species will be a huge point of contention moving forward, and it will be critical that anglers, whale watchers, bird watchers, conservationalists and others stay in front of the AMSFC to make sure that the importance of menhaden to the general Atlantic ecosystem is understood.
UPDATE
One positive update since the ASGA board meeting, is that a bill passed in Virginia that moved the regulation of menhaden from the Virginia Legislature to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. This is potentially a big win for menhaden, as the fish is now managed by the commission that manages all other fish. Hopefully this results in less politically-driven management and a more responsible approach.
Previous ASGA Update Entries: