Tag Archives: ASMFC

  • July 13, 2020

    The Vote is On for Atlantic Menhaden ERPs – Weigh In!

    Update! 08/05/2020 Ecological Reference Points for Atlantic Menhaden, reference points that account for menhaden’s role as a forage fish, have just been unanimously adopted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. This is a big win for menhaden predators, one that would not have been possible without the work of many dedicated organizations and individuals….

  • January 10, 2020

    Commerce Secretary Upholds Chesapeake Bay Menhaden Cap

    by Pam Lyons Gromen, Wild Oceans Executive Director Virginia's Menhaden Fishery to Shut Down in June 2020 if it Doesn't Take Action to Comply with the Bay Cap December 20, 2019 The U.S. Department of Commerce is standing by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's (ASMFC) decision to find the Commonwealth of Virginia out of...
  • July 22, 2019

    Ocean View

    Is the menhaden fishery certifiably “sustainable”?  Not yet it isn’t.

  • July 22, 2019

    3. Meeting Resistance

    In the first two parts of this series I described how the 2010 Atlantic menhaden stock assessment was scrapped after it triggered the first-ever catch restrictions on the menhaden fishery and replaced with one that allowed catches to increase.  Now we begin to look at why. In a paper presented to the American Fisheries Society...
  • November 30, 2018

    2. Losing Confidence

    I started following and attending Atlantic menhaden stock assessments on a regular basis in 1999.  That same year, as a member of the National Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel, I’d helped write the panel’s Report to Congress, Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management, in which we’d recommended that a first important step toward EBFM would be considering predator-prey relationships...
  • November 05, 2018

    1. When Everything Changed

    Confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions. – Science Daily Up until about eight years ago, the science was considered sound enough to declare Atlantic menhaden “not overfished” and thereby reject repeated calls by anglers and environmentalists to regulate the catch of what many...
  • July 24, 2018

    The Year Looked Good on Paper

    The following editorial appears in the Winter 2018 edition of The Wild Oceans Horizon.  Become a member to receive our newsletter on a regular basis. The Year Looked Good on Paper by Ken Hinman We did everything we could to get where we wanted to be.  But it turned out not to be enough. Three…

  • November 17, 2017

    ECO-FAIL

    Ecological Reference Points for Menhaden are Ready, But Menhaden Managers Are Not by Ken Hinman, November 17, 2017 Earlier this week, the ASMFC’s Menhaden Management Board, meeting in Baltimore to finalize Amendment 3 to its Atlantic Menhaden Management Plan, voted to wait at least another two years before adopting catch limits that account for the…

  • September 19, 2017

    For Menhaden, Time to Act is Here and Now

    Draft Amendment 3 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden Finally Offers a Way to Protect “The Most Important Fish in the Sea” by Ken Hinman In nature, you cannot do just one thing, as Walter Youngquist puts it, because everything is connected to everything else.  That’s why you can’t fish for Atlantic menhaden…

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