Jim,
I', not saying you are naive or that pogies are not important. BUT
" 1) This fish is one of the only fish that converts plant materials to rich protein. It does not eat smaller fish (like most other fish do). It is continually filtering decomposing vegetable matter from the water (a good thing for the water) and creating a rich oily flesh. In this regard it is a machine."
this was one of the big misconceptions I mentioned.
The way my geologist brain understands it (knowing minimal biology) is that the larger (commercial sized) pogies have gill rakers that do not allow them to eat algae and small phyto (plant) plankton; they almost exclusively eat larger zooplankton.
for these claims to be true, the population has to be entirely juvenile pogies, and whether we get a crop of peanuts every year or not depends on the structure of the population, as well as climate etc.. and whether they make it inshore, or hang offshore or elsewhere...
again, I'm not pro Omega protein and reduction boats, but the local boats taking a managed amount of them from local waters is not the end of the world.
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