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Originally Posted by Justfishin'
I can't believe that the Fisheries dept.s all along the East coast are'nt officially recognizing the cause of the decline in herring, shad and soon, the 'taug, scup, cunner etc.. They allowed companies like Omega Protein to absolutely decimate the mehaden population, possibly to near extinction, and they're blaming the stripers??. This is ridiculous! Bunker are (were) possibly the most important forage base availible to predator species and they allowed them to be harvested without regulation and the Fed has lent them the money to do it!.They turn them into poultry feed and cooking oil putting farmers who grew (renewable,sustained yield) feed and oil grains out of business. Bay and estuary water quality is declining as the bunker aren't there to filter the nitrogen and feed on the zooplankton. It's no wonder your'e seeing tuna caught from the beach-they don't have anything to eat offshore,so they're coming in to eat the immature bluefish. So now, they're going to punish the small commercial fishermen by closing more fisheries. The stupidity is staggering!. But, then again, Bush got elected......
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Looks like you need to do some homework, first of all, NONE of the species you listed eats menhaden. So no matter how bad a shape the menhaden populations is in, it wouldn't aftect thise species at all. Secondly, according to the ASMFC, there are ample stocks of menhaden on the east coast, the "problem" if one exists, is in localized depletion in the area where Omega protein is fishing, in the Chessapeak bay.