Small east coast fish fuels big environmental feud.
Small East Coast fish fuels big environmental feud
By Steve Szkotak, Associated Press Writer
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Donald George looks over fishing boats as he talks about the history of the Menhaden industry in Reedville, Va. AP Photo
REEDVILLE, Va. (AP) — Like the whaling city of New Bedford, this Chesapeake Bay fishing village prospered from the sea — not from the leviathans celebrated by Melville but a small, oily fish whose pungent scent envelops the stately Victorians lining Main Street.
Atlantic menhaden scooped up by the billions have made Reedville the No. 2 fishing port in the U.S. based on total catch weight. Now, the last remaining East Coast fleet that pursues the silvery fish is at the center of a debate over a species deemed by some as the most important in the sea.
With menhaden stocks falling to historic lows, environmentalists, scientists and sports fishermen say more stringent catch limits are needed. The forage species is eaten by prized game fish and vacuums the bay's waters to make the environmentally battered estuary healthier.
But regional fishing regulators insist menhaden are not overfished, and some scientists point to environmental reasons including climate change for their decline.
The debate is coming into sharper focus as an obscure Virginia study panel examines whether the regulation of Reedville's menhaden fleet should be shifted to a state agency that has had success restoring the bay's signature blue crab population over the past two years.
So why the fuss over a pudgy fish few people recognize by name, is about a foot in length and is virtually inedible?
Part of it is the Omega-3 capsules popular among Americans for the fish oil's vaunted health benefits. Menhaden are also used in an array of food and commercial products, from feed for swine, poultry and cattle to meal for fish farms.
Omega Protein Inc., a Houston-based company that also operates a menhaden fleet in the Gulf of Mexico, employs about 300 people at its Reedville plant during the May-to-December season.
Spotter planes help the company's fleet as the vessels work the bay. Once a school is spotted, chase vessels move in to trap the fish in a purse seine — a net that draws its name from the way it's cinched like a string on a purse.
A 165-foot-long mother ship then moves in to pump the writhing mass of menhaden into its hold, where the fish are press cooked and dried. The ship then returns to Omega's processing factory in Reedville, which was established as a menhaden fishing port in 1874.
Residents take pride in the fleet and the community's long association with the fish.
"Even a lot of the new people who come here, after a while they begin to show some pride in it, too," said Donald George, curator of the Reedville Fishermen's Museum.
Proponents and opponents of the menhaden fishing industry point to a report issued this year by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. It concluded that coastwide, Atlantic menhaden were not being overfished.
"To state this species is not being overfished is to mouth something which reveals a complete ignorance of history," said H. Bruce Franklin, author of "The Most Important Fish in the Sea," which chronicles the fish in America's history dating to the arrival of Europeans.
At one time, schools of migrating menhaden could stretch from Maine to Massachusetts. Jamestown colonist John Smith described his boat sailing into solid masses of schooling menhaden — so many of them his crew could scoop them up with frying pans.
The commission's report, however, did say the number of younger menhaden entering the population is low, even though egg production is high. Fisheries scientists refer to those fish under 1 as "age zero" and their maturity into the adult population as "recruitment."
Omega Protein spokesman Ben Landry said the company's scientists are convinced the commercial fishery is not to blame for the recruitment problem.
"We've designed our nets so the mesh of the purse seine is big enough for the age zeros to get out," he said. "As long as we're not catching the age zero fish, Omega Protein is not the cause for any low population."
Federal and state biologists monitor the catch at Omega's Reedville plant.
Franklin scoffs at Omega's contention that it and its defunct predecessors have not had a hand in declining menhaden stocks. Fishing regulators are too focused on measuring fish stocks based on the needs of the fishing industry, said Franklin, an English and American studies professor at Rutgers University.
"What they mean by not overfished is simple," Franklin said of the Atlantic States report. "There is enough fish there for Omega Protein to make a profit every year, and that means it's not overfished, and that's all it means."
A commission spokeswoman said the report was peer reviewed by an independent panel of scientists.
Joe W. Smith, a fisheries biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has helped monitor Omega's fishing for the past 20 years from his office in Beaufort, N.C., itself a former thriving menhaden port.
The number of fish reaching maturity seems to be more closely tied to environmental issues than fishing, Smith said. Some studies suggest climatic events, and there is some indication the recruitment issue is abating.
Omega Protein's Chesapeake Bay catch of menhaden is capped at 109,020 metric tons a year. The cap is overseen by the Virginia General Assembly. The study committee, however, wants the Virginia Marine Resources Commission to manage the bay's menhaden population.
The commission already oversees every species in the bay and could assess menhaden stocks better than legislators. It could also lower the catch limit, said Sen. Ralph Northam, a Norfolk Democrat who co-chairs the study committee, which has met once and plans to meet again this fall.
Omega declined to participate on the study panel, saying it is satisfied with the current arrangement.
"We prefer that 140 eyes look at it," Landry said of legislative oversight. "If it isn't broke, why try to fix it?"
