[Spot77]

....and i finally learned what the "reduction industry" is.


Here's a new article from this week's Capital:

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/new...ous-shape.html

Outdoors: Menhaden in precarious shape
By CHRIS D. DOLLAR, For The Capital
By CHRIS D. DOLLAR, For The Capital

Capital Gazette Communications Published 10/09/11
For hundreds of years, fueled by humans' rapacious appetite for fresh seafood and false notion that stocks were inexhaustible, fish and shellfish have been pulled out of bays and oceans at an unsustainable rate. Cod, striped bass, sturgeon, and oysters headline the list of species that at some point have been fished to near zero. Unless things change, and fast, add menhaden to that list.

A key food for rockfish, birds and sea mammals, menhaden are in trouble. The most recent stock assessment by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission revealed overfishing has occurred in 32 out of the last 54 years. Even scarier is that East Coast menhaden populations are estimate to be only 8 percent of its historical abundance. Today, one-fifth of the bunkers caught are used for bait by sport and commercial fishermen. The rest - about 150,000 tons - is caught by reduction fishery, run by Omega out of its Reedville plant. There, this key forage is cooked down into industrial oils for cosmetics and vitamins or ground into chicken feed or meal for farmed fish.

The fight to get the ASMFC's attention regarding menhaden's downward spiral goes back at least to the late 1990s. Although he wasn't quite the lone voice in the wilderness, Jim Price of the Chesapeake Bay Ecological Foundation didn't have a full chorus behind him when he expressed concerns that something was wrong with bay stripers and that perhaps a lack of menhaden in their diet might be a contributing factor. Early on, some scientists scoffed, but today his initial premise has proven to be spot on.

Virginia Institute of Marine Science researchers have since discovered that Mycobacterium shottsii, a new species of bacteria, is largely responsible for an outbreak among Chesapeake stripers causing lesions and early mortality. These findings only strengthen the argument that bay rockfish aren't getting nearly enough protein. Historically, rockfish primarily ate protein-rich menhaden. Today, bunker makes up less than 10 percent of bay stripers diet. That insufficient numbers of menhaden translates into a less-than-healthy rockfish population is a logical correlation.

In 2006, a bay-wide cap on the Chesapeake menhaden harvest went into effect with great fanfare and optimism. Part of that plan was to use LIDAR, the acronym for ''light detection and range'' in which pulses from a laser measure the properties of a target, to try and determine how many bunker were in the bay. But LIDAR didn't work; bay waters were too deep and particulate matter presumably skewed the laser's effectiveness.

That initiative, however, set the table to ratchet up pressure on the ASMFC to do something to slow the menhaden decline. Bruce Franklin's book, ''The Most Important Fish in the Sea'' published in 2007, was a game changer. Menhaden became cause celebre.

Could 2011 be the year when sustainability trumps maximum harvest, money and political clout?

"Chances are better than ever that meaningful action will be taken to better manage menhaden," said Richen Brame, Atlantic States fisheries director for the Coastal Conservation Association.

On its website, CBF fisheries policy chief Bill Goldsborough called the potential action a "landmark thing for menhaden. This is what we've been fighting for for years."

The ASMFC is considering options that would limit overfishing, lower the harvest target, which would provide a buffer against overfishing, and give resource managers better tools to constrict the harvest to meet that management target. All of Maryland's fishing groups have the details on their websites. On Tuesday, the Department of Natural Resources will host a public hearing beginning at 6 p.m. at its headquarters in Annapolis. You can also email your opinion directly to the ASMFC at tkerns@asmfc.org. The public comment period ends at 5 p.m. on Nov. 2.

For nearly two decades I've made my living, such that it is, from the Chesapeake. I owe it far more than it owes me. Status quo menhaden management has yielded nothing but a bleak future for this vital forage and the gamefish, birds and marine mammals that depend upon them. The good news is that given the chance menhaden can reproduce quickly. To ASMFC members: here's your chance to get it right-it's a slam dunk. Don't dilute your responsibilities to the marine resource and public by settling for watered down measures.