I want to thank Eric Burnley for his viewpoint on the overfishing of the menhaden population.
After reading the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition viewpoint, it seemed like they were trying to discredit Mr. Burnley's comments, and wanted to give another viewpoint.
As an avid fisherman in Maryland, Virginia and Delaware over the past 25 years, I have seen the huge menhaden trawlers up close in the Chesapeake Bay, and witnessed the destruction of the bycatch of rockfish and other species. Menhaden are a very valuable food source for other fish and a wide variety of other wildlife, and also clean the water. As any fishman knows, fishing continues to decline over the years, and the overfishing of forage fish like menhaden contributes to that.
If you read the Draft Proceedings of the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board Meeting February 2017 you will see that that Mr. Burnley's comments are appropriate. The following comment from that document seems to sum things up:
"It is very much a global market. The menhaden reduction oil and meal products have been very consistent in quality and in high demand. Prices have gone up."
Sounds like the MFC is related to Omega Protein, a large corporation, which wants to meet that demand. On its website, Omega Protein discusses "sustainable products." Raising the catch from 216 metric tons to 314 metric tons (almost 50 percent) doesn't seem sustainable to me.
Feeding the global market should not be the only use of the menhaden resource. Their huge trawlers used in conjunction with spotter planes could easily harvest enough menhaden to destroy the entire population in short order.
I hope the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and Atlantic Menhaden Management Board do not allow the menhaden resource to be overfished by the MFC and Omega Protein. I appreciate Mr. Burnley's viewpoint on the subject, and thank him for making the public aware of the potential for menhaden overfishing.
Peter Lucuk
Millsboro
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