The Most Important Fish In The Sea Needs Your Help! Menhaden

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

https://www.stripersforever.org/


The Most Important Fish In The Sea Needs Your Help!

Menhaden, one of the ocean’s most valuable forage fish, are a primary food source for wild striped bass and without them there will be dire consequences for their entire ecosystem. Because of past over-harvesting, species like striped bass that normally feed on menhaden have displayed symptoms of malnourishment and disease.

Menhaden have regularly been overfished during the past 55 years according to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the regulatory agency in charge of managing them. Menhaden are being regulated as a single species with little regard for their interdependent value within their ecosystem. That is about to change…..with your help. NOAA is pushing for current single species management models to transition over to ecosystem- based management (EBM) protocols.

The goal of EBM is to recognize species interdependency and maintain ecosystems in a healthy, productive and resilient condition. As a regulatory commission the ASMFC is asking for your input on how best to implement this effort. With the help of professional volunteers that have many years of fisheries oversight, we have made it simple and easy for you to participate. Below we have outlined the considered options that we feel will be best for Menhaden, wild Striped Bass and their entire shared ecosystem.

[Tony Buzolich]

Bill,

I think the menhaden you are referring to are Atlantic coast fish. Though we do have some Pacific menhaden they are farther south. Up in our area (Pacific north west) shad are almost an exact copy of menhaden and they are everywhere from the Columbia and rivers south, and so are the stripers.
Tony

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

I think that is all an East Coast deal.........they have more shallow water and more bait fish.

[JCam]

It took me a minute to remember menhaden was bunker.
I grew up catching bunker to use as bait. We use to use casting nets, seining nets, and bunker snagers which are nothing more than large weighted treble hooks. Growing up on near Sandy Hook NJ you learned always to have a few rods ready encase a school of bunker showed up. Hard to grasp how they could have declined so much.

[hwchubb]

Wonder how closely the decline of bluefish has paralleled the decline of bunker. I remember fishing Long Island Sound as a kid, and smelling the school of bunker almost before you could see them. I'm with you JC, they seemed endless - like salmon on the West Coast.

[John Sv]

I'm from the Chesapeake region...we called everything LY's which I think came from alewive which were usually menhaden. I think bunker is the menhaden name from Long Island Northward?
Either way, my buddy that lives in Richmond and does resto work on the bay says the menhaden crisis cannot be overstated.
ugh

[winxp_man]

Wonder how closely the decline of bluefish has paralleled the decline of bunker. I remember fishing Long Island Sound as a kid, and smelling the school of bunker almost before you could see them. I'm with you JC, they seemed endless - like salmon on the West Coast.

Its seems like the damn moto of a lot of meat guys that fish! Oh endless I mean look at the ocean! But little do they know that only so much resources can be produced by nature. One day nothing will be left! And like you said the westcoast salmon and lets not forget the east coast Atlantic salmon all are in critical low numbers, and the issues surrounding the drop in numbers are endless!

[Bkane]

Guess what's in your fish oil?