Amid all the gloom-and-doom
reporting, good news often slips by unnoticed.
That seems to be the case with menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay.
If you read most of the articles
written about Chesapeake Bay menhaden, you’d get the impression that they were
in some sort of serious trouble. For example,
the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership recently put out a press release
that began
“A healthy Chesapeake Bay with abundant
fishing opportunities is only possible when there are sufficient menhaden. Menhaden are keystone species serving as a
critical food source for iconic Bay sportfish like striped bass, red drum,
and bluefish, as well as ospreys, marine mammals, and more. But for far too long, the critical science
needed to make informed decisions about the Chesapeake’s menhaden has been
delayed due to interference from industrial fishing behemoth Omega Protein,
which removes over 100 million pounds of menhaden from the Bay each year. [emphasis in original]”
The tone of the release suggests
that there were problems with the Bay’s menhaden population—if one can even say
that there is such a thing as a “Chesapeake Bay population” of menhaden since,
so far as I know, no one has yet quantified the movements of menhaden in and
out of the Bay. In fact,
the most recent benchmark stock assessment informs us that
“Based on size-frequency information and
tagging studies, the Atlantic menhaden resource is believed to consist of
a single unit stock or population.
Genetic studies support the single stock hypothesis. [emphasis added; references omitted]”
Given that statement, it is probably
incorrect to refer to a “Chesapeake Bay population” of menhaden at all.
“given the high mobility of of menhaden,
the potential for localized depletion could only occur on a ‘relatively small
scale for a relatively short time.’”
While it’s true that a
lot more scientific information is needed to clear up such questions, and the
the Virginia legislature has unfortunately delayed funding for studies that
might help scientists find needed answers, it is also true that the ominous
tone of the TRCP release, and most other public comments on menhaden,
unnecessarily—and undoubtedly intentionally—skews public opinion in an
unjustifiably negative direction.
Such skewed public opinion was
readily apparent in
the comments made by some stakeholders ahead of the December 16 meeting of the
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management
Board. While the
problems facing the striped bass stock are well known—it experienced
overfishing for many years prior to 2020, and because of unfavorable
environmental conditions, most notably a lack of cold winters and cool, wet
springs, has experienced very poor spawning success over the past six years—too
many commentors ignored those issues and placed the blame for low striped bass
abundance on an imagined shortage of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay.
Thus, we saw comments such as
“[Problems] in the Chesapeake Bay causing
lower spawn rates [include]…allowing omega [sic] boats to fish inside the
bay. The bass will still migrate south to
there [sic] spawning grounds but when it comes to spawning time they don’t have
enough bunker to feed on to nourish their eggs for viable spawning,”
“As your own scientists have pointed out,
striped bass are the most sensitive fish to declines in menhaden. I urge you to consider menhaden reduction
harvest as a likely contributing factor in the decline of striped bass,”
and
“Stop all harvesting of Atlantic menhaden…Now
bigger picture. Entire bays being
harvested for menhaden no fish will push in and if there’s no food for their
offspring why would they breed.
[sic] These fish are not dumb
they have been around a long time because of their survival skills. STOP the commercial harvest of MENHADEN. It is being used for completely unnecessary
products and the ecosystem all up and down the coast.”
Such comments were made
regardless of the fact that there is no data supporting the claims that there
are insufficient menhaden to support the striped bass population. The health of the menhaden stock is measured
by the use of ecological reference points that are tied directly to the needs
of the striped bass. The target fishing
mortality rate for Atlantic menhaden is defined as
“the maximum fishing mortality rate (F) on
Atlantic menhaden that sustains Atlantic striped bass at their biomass target
when striped bass are fished at their F target,”
while the fecundity target, which
is used in lieu of a biomass target, is
“the long-term equilibrium fecundity that
results when the population is fished at the [ecological reference point] F
target.”
And
since the most recent stock assessment update, completed in 2022, found that
“The fishing mortality rate for the
terminal year of 2021 was below the [ecological reference point] target and
threshold and the fecundity was above the [ecological reference point] target
and threshold,”
any claims that the current
overfished state of the striped bass stock is due to a shortage of menhaden
lacks all credibility.
Some might try to argue that the
stock assessment only looks at coastwide abundance, and so does not reflect the
abundance of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay.
However, such arguments overlook one critical fact: For the last two years, the Chesapeake Bay
has been flooded with juvenile menhaden.
“Menhaden abundance was the highest
measured in over 30 years.”
In
2024, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources announced that
“Menhaden abundance was nearly equal to
last year, which was the highest measured since 1990.”
While those surveys were only
conducted in the Maryland portion of Chesapeake Bay, the benchmark stock
assessment also informs us that
“There have been several studies examining
Atlantic menhaden migration patterns.
Adults begin migrating inshore and north in early spring following the
end of the major spawning season off the Carolinas during December-February.”
Based on that information, it is
reasonable to believe that an equal number of menhaden enter the Virginia
portion of the Chesapeake Bay during the spring inshore migration, and that if
there is any additional inflow of menhaden from the ocean later in the year, such
fish would also venture into Virginia waters.
Yet, for some reason, there is
little or no effort made to get the good news about Chesapeake menhaden out to
the public. The Maryland Department of
Natural Resources reported its findings of high menhaden abundance in a single
sentence buried in a press release focusing on striped bass, and few other
outlets picked up the story.
After
scientists at Virginia’s College of William and Mary found that osprey nesting
success in one local bay had declined in recent years, and blamed that decline
on a shortage of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay, the story was widely covered
in the mainstream press, including a comprehensive feature published in The
New York Times. Yet when another
team of biologists from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science criticized
that study, questioning the data and statistical methods that led to is
conclusion that commercial menhaden fishing within the Chesapeake Bay was the
cause of the ospreys’ nesting woes, and ultimately questioning that conclusion
itself, writing,
“while we share concerns about the
demographic and foraging trends of osprey in Mobjack Bay, the analysis
presented in [the original study] do not establish a clear relationship with
menhaden abundance and availability,”
their findings were reported in
some local news outlets, but never attained the national attention that the
original study received.
It’s almost as if everyone knows
that bad news about menhaden sells better, particularly to big foundations that
provide the grants used to pay the salaries of consultants who lead the attacks
on the menhaden industry, and to the donors that help keep various advocacy
organizations, big and small, alive, while good menhaden news might result in
those funds being redirected elsewhere.
Yet, as Dr.
Robert Latour noted after issuing his criticism of the original study,
“It may turn out that the linkage is real,
and I’m certainly willing to admit that, but right now I just don’t feel like
we can say that…There was so much pressure being put on industry and
policymakers to make decisions, and the scientific basis for doing that was not
very solid at all. So the point of the
commentary was to give an alternative perspective.”
And that alternative perspective
is certainly needed, because fisheries management decisions ought to be based
on facts, not on emotions generated by a distorted view of the truth. When those facts are absent, it’s incumbent
on fisheries managers to go out and find them; it’s easy to argue that Virginia’s
failure to finance comprehensive menhaden research was a shortsighted and
potentially costly mistake.
But when information is
available, it is incumbent upon researchers and advocates, as well as the
press, to put as much emphasis on the good news and they put on the bad. To do anything less brings their credibility
into question.
The news out of Maryland, which
found the greatest menhaden abundance in over 30 years, was certainly good, yet
it was scarcely reported by any of the outlets or organizations that are quick
to trumpet bad news regarding the species.
We can only suspect why such pervasive
silence prevailed.
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