The Atlantic Menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) is a smallish baitfish that makes up the bottom eating regimen of many predatory fish species up and down the Atlantic seaboard. Solely rising to about 15 inches lengthy and weighing a pound at greatest, this little fish is the middle of lots of competition. Being such an vital prey species for a lot of fashionable species within the Chesapeake Bay the business harvest of tons of of hundreds of tons yearly brings within the ire of many teams.
Now there may be an finish in sight for business menhaden fishing within the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay. A invoice was launched for the following session of the Virginia Normal Meeting for a two-year moratorium to be positioned on Atlantic menhaden. This moratorium could be put in place within the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay, shutting down an ideal portion of the harvest within the bay. The invoice is being sponsored by State Delegate Tim Anderson (R)-Virginia Seashore.
There’s a finger-pointing recreation happening between the business menhaden purse seiners and angler and conservation teams. Omega Protein, the most important business menhaden agency, is blaming the anglers saying they fished out the sportfish, whereas the anglers and conservation teams are blaming business purse seiners. Saying that the elimination of 51,000 metric tons of menhaden from the Chesapeake Bay is slowly killing off the predatory fish that feed on the menhaden. Omega Protein harvests a median of 137,000 metric tons of menhaden a 12 months, so the lack of the flexibility to fish contained in the Chesapeake Bay could be substantial for the enterprise.
Anderson’s invoice would, moreover simply closing the Chesapeake Bay to business bunker fishing, would additionally set up an advisory committee to do analysis on discount fishing through the two-year moratorium. The advisory committee would then present the information on its findings to the Virginia Marine Sources Fee (VMRC) after its analysis is full. At this level that is nonetheless a proposed invoice so we are going to simply have to attend and see the place it goes.
