My Editor’s Log in our July 6th weekly edition of The Fisherman called “Season, Size & Bag” described the primary difference between commercial fisheries management and recreational. In a nutshell, the commercials are managed on a pound-for-pound basis with catches tallied at the dock to account for their totals; on the other hand, with random harvest surveys and no common offload location, recreational fisheries management essentially converts pounds to individual numbers of fish to set a season, size and bag to limit our statistical take.
When talking to a friend after the July 9th meeting of the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council (Council) in Galloway, I got to thinking about total commercial poundage versus total numbers of recreationally caught fish and wondered if this system wasn’t more broken than I’d originally thought, especially when it comes to the commercial menhaden fishery.
As you’ll read in Bobby Keeney’s article in this month’s edition called “The Stink House: Crab Island’s Fish Factory,” back in 2002 New Jersey state law banned the harvest of menhaden for the purpose of fish meal reduction in state waters. Thus, the so-called “Omega Fleet” of reduction boats operating in eyesight of New Jersey beaches has since been restricted to fishing beyond 3 miles, in federal waters. Meanwhile, bait boats operating inside state waters are allotted an overall quota for harvesting menhaden exclusively for bait sales.
During the July 9th Council meeting, voting members shared their observations on the bunker biomass; anecdotally, even members of the commercial fishing fleet noted an absence of larger, adult bunker in the age 6 and older class which tape out to more than a foot in length and weigh a pound or more each. These larger, heavier adults are more apt to be seen swimming along the surface, whereas bunker half that age and size often tend to stay down deeper in the water column where you may need to rely on electronics to find them. Simple biology, fewer mature fish in local waters to spawn in the spring, fewer young of the year menhaden come fall.
Theoretically speaking, when adult bunker are more prevalent, a commercial harvest of 400 million pounds of mostly 1-pound bunker equates to 400 million actual menhaden removed from the water. On the other hand, if it’s mostly half-pound menhaden comprising the biomass, that same total allowable commercial catch actually doubles the number of individual bunker removed to more than 800 million fish.
The obvious question is, can the ecosystem handle this sheer volume of critically important forage being removed, not just poundage but in actual number of fish? If smaller, younger menhaden make up the majority of today’s commercial harvest, more fish are actually being removed from the fishery than in prior years to meet the total allowable poundage.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) will hold its annual Summer Meeting from August 4-6 in Arlington, VA. On the agenda for Wednesday, August 5th is a meeting of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board to consider reducing the reduction fishery landings cap in the Chesapeake Bay. The board will also review impacts to the bait fishery stemming from any Chesapeake Bay reductions, while also looking at technical specifications through 2029.
Technically speaking, 6 years ago this month the ASMFC and its menhaden board took a major step towards an ecosystem approach to fisheries management by approving ecological reference points to account for the menhaden’s critical role as a crucial forage fish. When the ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board reconvenes again August 5th, I trust the board’s chairman, Joe Cimino, the Marine Resources Administrator for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, will remember these discussions from the July 9th Council meeting in Galloway.
The fact is Joe, if we’re talking about the entire ecosystem, the current menhaden numbers simply don’t add up when subtracting more fish from the food web.
