Tag Archives: Forage

  • 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….

  • 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...
  • October 22, 2015

    Pacific Council Finishes Precautionary Plan to Protect Unmanaged Forage

    In September 2015, I attended the Pacific Fishery Management Council in Sacramento to celebrate the Council’s completion of their first ecosystem-based amendment, three years in the making, which will protect unmanaged and unfished forage fish from directed commercial fishing. The Council approved regulations drafted by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), that identify a suite…

  • October 22, 2015

    Mid-Atlantic Moves to Safeguard Unprotected Forage Base

    “Scoping Reveals Emerging Forage Fisheries” By Pam Lyons Gromen At the October 7th meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, we heard disturbing word from the region’s fishermen that a handful of unmanaged forage species are already the target of commercial fisheries, including round herring, Spanish sardine and chub mackerel, making real the threat of…

  • March 03, 2014

    250 Million More Menhaden In 2014

    MENHADEN CONSERVATION MEASURES LEAVE MORE PREY IN THE WATER TO SUSTAIN PREDATORS 250 million menhaden!  That’s the estimated number of these vital forage fish left in the water in 2013 to feed Atlantic striped bass, bluefin tuna, osprey, whales and myriad other marine animals, because of a new east coast menhaden conservation program that took...
  • August 20, 2013

    Pacific Council on the Right Path to Safeguard Forage

    By Theresa Labriola – Thanks to everyone who signed our petition asking the Pacific Fishery Management Council to initiate a process for developing a forage status indicator. In June, I traveled to the Council meeting in Garden Grove, California to hand deliver your petition to the Council. While there, I presented testimony on behalf of…

  • June 18, 2013

    Federal Council Approves Measure to Conserve River Herring and Shad

    On June 12th the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council placed the first-ever limits on the catch of river herring and shad in offshore waters, capping the amount that can be taken in a year by trawl netters fishing for mackerel. Individual states along the eastern seaboard have tightly restricted and in a number of cases completely...
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