The Fishery
The menhaden fishery is the oldest continuous commercial fishery in the United States. It dates as far back as the the late 1700s on the Atlantic coast, the product then used as fertilizer for growing crops and, to a lesser extent, as food for humans. In the early 1800s, it was discovered that menhaden could yield oil comparable in quality and usage with whale oil, then used extensively for lamp and lubricating oil. This discovery was instrumental in turning whaling towns into menhaden towns along the Atlantic seaboard. Up until the late 1800s, seine and gill nets, set and hauled by hand from beaches, were used to harvest the fish. Soon thereafter, vessels were being used to follow the fish into waters farther offshore. This was the precursor to today’s menhaden vessels that ply the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. In the early to mid 1800s came the innovation that revolutionized the harvest of menhaden—; the purse seine. Instead of setting nets and hoping that fish would run into them and become ensnared, the purse seine is set by surrounding a school of fish, enclosing the lower end of the net (pursing), and unloading the school of fish on a boat. Purse seines are still used today to catch menhaden.
UNDERSTANDING THE FISHERY
The menhaden fishery is often misunderstood, with otherwise well-meaning people raising ecological issues and concerns about depletion, dating back to the 1800s. Omega Protein Corporation is proud to say that America's menhaden resource is one of the nation's most-studied, with authoritative scientific reports dating back to the 1800s. Both the federal National Marine Fisheries Service and fisheries departments in states that have active menhaden industries conduct on-going scientific sampling programs and issue reports on the health of the menhaden resource. According to these agencies the menhaden fishery continues to be healthy, and present harvest levels remain far below the level at which scientists believe could deplete the resource.
In fact, the most recent stock assessment for the Gulf fishery, completed in 2006 using data through 2004, and published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, states that the fishery is not overfished and overfishing was not occurring as of 2004.”
The most recent stock assessment for the Atlantic menhaden was completed in 2010 using data collected through 2008. According to federal and ASMFC technical experts, the assessment found that the Atlantic menhaden stock had undergone slight overfishing in one year, 2008; however, the population is not considered overfished, meaning that the stock abundance remains at or near target levels, above levels of concern, and can produce enough eggs to replace itself. The report indicates that the population was subject to slight overfishing in 2008 by an estimated four-tenths of one percent. More specifically, multiple runs of the stock assessment model revealed that there was a 53% probability that overfishing had occurred and a 47% probability that overfishing had not occurred.
This finding does not trigger automatic regulatory action; rather, scientists will further evaluate the current status to determine if any regulation is even warranted. Concurrently, the ASMFC is investigating alternative means such as biological reference points based upon maximum spawning potential to determine the health and status of the Atlantic menhaden stock. These scientific reference points could serve as new triggers for revaluation of the necessity of management action if they are breached in the future.
Because of its amazing productivity - a large adult female menhaden can spawn up to three to four hundred thousand offspring in a single year. Menhaden are known to be important food fish for many other marine species, and are considered an important component of their ecosystem. Because of its importance, the species and the population are monitored closely by marine biologists. With annual harvests remaining at or below about 20% of the total estimated adult biomass, menhaden remain in sufficient numbers in the coastal waters to provide forage for other important fish species and to reproduce sufficiently to ensure the continuation of the species into the future.