Stewardship

Cartoon by Matt Wuerker 12/11/12 http://politi.co/TSu9iP

More B.S. out of Omega Protein

During lunch today, FLTA Senior Editor Terry Gibson weighed in against Omega Protein spokesman Ben Landry, on the Hearsay Radio Show, broadcast by WHRV Radio in Norfolk, VA. Panelists included Landry, Chris Moore of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Peter Baker of the Pew Environment Group, Rep. Wittman (R-VA) and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Chair Louis Daniel, who serves as director of North Carolina’s Division of Marine Fisheries.

Gibson called B.S. on Landry, pointing out that the most recent peer-reviewed stock assessment reflects what generations of anglers have witnessed. Menhaden have virtually disappeared from the edges of their range, especially in New England and off the southern states of Florida and Georgia. And Gibson made the case that it isn’t fair to risk thousands of responsible fishing and other tourism-related businesses on the Atlantic Seaboard.

Landry tried to judo-flip the argument for conservative management by pointing to “uncertainty” in the stock assessment as an excuse not to take action, even though the peer-reviewed stock assessment shows Atlantic menhaden are down to less than 10 percent of an un-fished level, and that overfishing has occurred in 32 of the last 54 years—due primarily to Omega’s intensive fishing practices. Landry said that they saw no need to support more than a 10-percent total reduction in harvest, since the stock had remained stable since the 1980s. The biologists on the call cut the knees out from under that argument by explaining that in fact menhaden populations began their steepest decline during those years.

Consider the source. Here’s a guy who represents a company that hires foreign fisheries biologists to bully American scientists and managers charged with assessing U.S. fish populations. Read the Public Trust Project report entitled “Scientists for Hire: What Industry’s Deep Pockets are doing to our Fisheries.”

Landry also re-introduced Omega workers facing layoffs, in a year when Omega earned tremendous profits, executives took home huge bonuses, and while Omega hire hundreds of foreign workers. Click here for the Public Trust Project’s latest investigation into their hiring practices, which reports that, “Records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that Omega Protein has employed hundreds of foreign laborers through H2B visas, a federal program that allows American companies to hire foreign nationals to fill temporary jobs.  In order to be awarded H2B visas, a company must prove that “there are not enough U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to do temporary work.”

Stay tuned for news straight from the ASFMC meeting Friday in Baltimore.

--FLTA

Stewardship

Stop the Menhaden Mismanagement Madness

By John Kelly

I’m encouraging every veteran angler to take a look at this graph, which shows the decline of Atlantic menhaden since the mid-1980s.

Think about your own fishing experiences along this timeline. The data it reflects match up exactly with my own observations across more than 40-plus years of fly and light-tackle fishing. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission needs to close the fishery or at least make sufficient cuts in the harvest, before it’s too late for bunker.

I have been fishing since I can remember. The first fish I ever caught was a weakfish at age four. Weakfish are an almost non-existent species these days in southern New England, no thanks to a combination of overfishing and poor menhaden stocks. Along with our current stocks of Atlantic menhaden their northerly and southerly range has shrunk.

When I caught that weakfish, I was with my grandfather who passed his love of the marine world and fishing onto me. He would revel in stories of massive schools of menhaden that would choke the Niantic River mouth and adjacent Connecticut beaches and all the large striped bass and bluefish that would feed on them during the fall migration. By the time I was old enough to learn to fish, menhaden had already declined.

But still what I enjoyed as a boy was impressive, compared to the sad state of things today. I remember the massive numbers in the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. Menhaden schools stretched from one side of Niantic Bay to the other. I stood at the point at McCook’s Beach in Niantic and all the water I could see, in every direction, was boiling with them as they were pounded by schools of 15- to 20-pound bluefish. I've not seen anything like that since the mid-1980s. The sad thing is how when I was a boy you heard stories of the “good ol’ days” and now with the situation worsening I find myself telling younger fisherman “good ol’ days” stories as I had witnessed. We are clearly headed in the wrong direction.

Of course, my boyhood days growing up on Long Island Sound in Niantic, Connecticut coincided with the mid 70's to mid-80's peak in the “modern” menhaden stock. Besides stripers, blues and weakfish, giant bluefin tuna also came within a short run to feed on bunker. Over-fishing of those predators was a major problem in those days, and I’m very concerned about the downward trajectory of striped bass, weakfish and bluefin that we’re seeing today. But, their declines in the 80s and 90s were also related to a lack of forage—namely menhaden. Nothing provides them with a better source of nutrition than menhaden, which they need to eat to have the energy to make long migrations and to reproduce effectively.

My fishing friends in Florida say the big menhaden pods have disappeared from southeast Florida while the pods are shrinking in size off East Central and Northeast Florida. Improved fish finding technology coupled with the recently increased demand for fish oil are strong contributing factors to the demise we see on the graph and on the water. The bait needs a break, plain and simple. It is time to “err on the side of the resource” and not some well-funded special interests with tremendous clout in the form of campaign donations.

Both recreational and commercial fisherman, as well as those who derive their income from the waters of America’s Atlantic seaboard, depend on healthy stocks of menhaden in order to be successful. It is time to take a stand and do what is right and what is logical. Protect the menhaden from overfishing, period. Enough of this boom-to-bust fishing. Let’s set and enforce science-based annual catch limits that prevent overfishing on everything subject to harvest in state and federal waters. That way, we can make the “good ol’ days” the near future.

John Kelly is a native of Niantic, Connecticut, and has fished in New England for more than 40 years. He has dedicated his life to fishing, and traveled extensively.

iCandy

Stewardship

    Capt. Scott Wagner

Low Country Fisheries Suffer without Menhaden

If you want a small picture of what recreational fishing will look like along the Eastern Seaboard without menhaden, just come on down to the Savannah River and I’ll show you what we’ve lost here already. The “pogies” are gone. As a consequence, we’ve lost our striped bass fishery in the estuary, and the populations of our most popular inshore fish, speckled trout and redfish, are hurting. These species can and did stand a lot of fishing pressure when they could get the nutrition to reproduce successfully. But not now that the best source of nutrition—menhaden—are virtually gone.

About 15 years ago, when I cut my teeth as a fly and light tackle guide in this area, I learned quickly that I could count on the beautiful Savannah River for great winter striped bass fishing, even on the rankest days of winter. Any fishing guide that has such a spot will tell you how grateful they are to have protected water where you can catch trophy fish pretty much regardless of the weather Mother Nature throws at you. You don’t have to cancel nearly as many trips, or risk losing a client because rough water beat them up, they’re soaked, and the fish didn’t bite.

Scientists and fisheries managers will back up what I’m saying. The state of Georgia has spent tremendous amounts of time and money trying to maintain the Savannah’s striper population through stocking. But as usual, stocking hasn’t worked without the necessary forage to support the hatchery fish. I hope that the state will look into suing Omega Protein and/or the Atlantic States Fisheries Commission—the entity that’s supposed to manage coastal, interstate fisheries sustainably. They owe us big time. Omega has pillaged the ocean of these essential fish, costing us untold revenues, while the ASMFC hasn’t managed menhaden at all.

It’s sad to say, but these days, I don’t even bother taking customers up river for stripers, and there are far fewer trout or reds in those marshes either. Beyond all the lost charters that hit me hard in the wallet, it’s just tragic watching such a gorgeous ecosystem fall apart. The cormorants and other birds we enjoy seeing, and showed us where the bait was, are mostly gone as well. So if the bigger predators are disappearing, I shudder to think about all the ways their absence is impacting the food web. And I shudder to think about the future of great jobs like mine, and the jobs related to the tourism industries that fishing and wildlife viewing drive.

Fortunately, last year, ASMFC commissioners voted 14-2 to get serious about managing menhaden sustainably. They ought to shut down the fishery for a few years. A lot of other people, including scientists, coastal business owners like me, as well as individual anglers, wildlife lovers and citizens, have told them to close it or at the very least make major cuts in the allowable harvest. They received about 120,000 public comments weighing in on behalf of the fish. If that doesn’t send them the message that we’re not going to take any more excuses, I don’t know what will.

December 14, 2012, the day of the vote, is a gut check for those commissioners. Are you going to cave into political pressure from one bullying company that isn’t smart enough to develop a business plan based upon sustainability? Or will you save thousands of responsible businesses like mine, along with the magnificent ecosystems that they depend upon? Your vote will be a reflection of the strength or weakness of your character.

Capt. Scott Wagner is the owner of Savannah Fly Fishing Charters, and is widely regarded as one of the most knowledgeable and successful guides in the Low Country. He will contribute regularly to FLTA.

Stewardship

Menhaden in Crisis along the

U.S. Eastern Seaboard

Editorial

On December 14, 2012, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) will hold a vote that could determine the fate of recreational fishing and the ecosystems that our fisheries depend upon along the United States’ Eastern Seaboard. The vote is in regard to the future management of Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus), commonly called “pogies,” “bunker” or “moss bunker.” Whether you target tarpon in the Florida Keys, or stripers in Maine, or virtually any U.S. East Coast predators that feed primarily on fish, this vote will strongly impact your fishing future. Leading up to the vote, www.flyandlighttackleangler.com will publish perspectives from notable anglers from affected states, and post links to blogs and editorials provided by other outdoor enthusiasts and experts. This mosaic of perspectives demonstrates clearly how serious the situation has become, and how imperative it is for the ASMFC to take dramatic actions to restore this most essential of species.

The Situation Room

Atlantic menhaden stand at ten percent or less of the historic population and are at an all-time low, thanks mostly to a rapacious company called Omega Protein, whose Atlantic factory is based in Reedville, Virginia.

“Omega” seines upward of 80 percent of the catch, and grinds it into dietary supplements, fertilizer, pet food, and feed for aquaculture, chickens and pigs. The publicly traded, vertically integrated company has largely caused overfishing of menhaden to occur in the population in 32 of the past 54 years. Overfishing is defined as the taking of a population out of an ocean ecosystem faster than it can reproduce itself.

The situation has become so dire that for the past two years it’s required “all hands on deck” advocacy by recreational fishing groups such as several Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) state organizations, for many Audubon Society Chapters, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Menhaden Defenders and a slew of the nation’s most respected conservation groups.

Hundreds of coastal businesses have weighed in, as did dozens of leading PhD scientists, and more than 90,000 individuals in 2011 and some 120,000 leading up to the December, 2012 vote. To rebuild the population and return the biomass to somewhere in range of what a healthy northwestern Atlantic needs, the commission must adopt a coast-wide annual catch limit and support measures that reduce the catch by at least 50 percent below recent levels. It should commit to meet that goal within five years.

The Facts about Atlantic Menhaden

Menhaden provide a most essential source of nutrition for a tremendous variety of predators. Notables include: striped bass, bluefish, most mackerels, all tunas, tarpon, cobia, many drums including redfish, spotted seatrout and weakfish, snook, billfishes including sailfish, whales, ospreys, eagles, gannets, and other seabirds. These are the species that drive the economies of coastal communities, supporting sustainable recreational and commercial fishing, as well as diverse wildlife watching opportunities, not to mention the massive tourism-related businesses that benefit from these industries.

Menhaden, which are often called “the most important fish in the ocean,” provide several profound ecosystem services. Foremost, they provide organisms higher in the foodweb with vastly superior nutritional elements, including proteins like Omega 3 fatty acids.

Without such nutrition, or even with less of it, animals struggle in many ways, from making long-distance migrations back to spawning grounds, to fending off infections, to actually having the energy to produce viable eggs and sperm.

Perhaps the most alarming direct impact is the impact on reproduction. But many striped bass, especially in the Chesapeake region, are suffering from skin lesions linked to weaknesses in their immune system caused by malnutrition. “Trophic cascades” are also being documented. For instance, weakfish have virtually disappeared, and it is likely a consequence of striped bass and bluefish eating them instead of menhaden. There are plenty of other examples. Finally, menhaden, as filter feeders, play vital roles in maintaining water quality.

Down to the Wire

FLTA Senior Editor Terry Gibson will attend the December 14 ASMFC meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, and keep us apprised of the proceedings via social media. If you are in the Baltimore area or care to travel, you’re encouraged to attend. The meeting is open to the public. Gibson will follow up with a thorough report on the implications of whatever the commissioners decide. The FLTA editorial board sent a letter to the ASMFC stating our position on the issue, which is that a moratorium would be the most appropriate action and that at minimum the harvest should be cut in half, with a fair allocation going to the bait industry. Stay tuned for on-water perspectives about the menhaden crisis.

--FLTA Editorial Board