Omega 1; Environment 0
 

The Atlantic States Marine Fishing Commission has increased the menhaden harvest cap by 8% rather than conduct a management approach that would attempt to determine how important the forage fish is to its natural predators including striped bass. This action drew an appreciative response from the commercial fishing industry.

$$$$ & Politicians

:(
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I've been loosely following this for a few weeks- the public input had 200,000 letters in favor of an environment-based approach. and still the #^&#^&#^&#^&ing cowards on ASMFC felt that 1 company deserved a increased harvest. they now have 78% of the entire coast harvest for themselves....


defies explanation (except if you count greed and corruption)

Would these scoundrels have any relation to a particular judge and "former" head of the state police????

Allocation decisions/discussions are (and should be) different than TAC decisions/discussions. They did adopt an ecosystem approach, they just didn't adopt the Lenfest, one size fits all, approach. Now the staff will continue to develop menhaden specific erps.

Remember, this is one fish where the spawning stock biomass has nothing to do with the success of any given year's spawn.