More on the Menhaden Cap
Below is an article from Sunday's Washington Post that discusses the Menhaden cap.
Frozen FishingA proposal to cap harvests of a single fish in the Chesapeake Bay is a good compromise -- for now.
Sunday, August 6, 2006; B06
NOBODY REALLY knows what's happening to the Chesapeake Bay's menhaden, a small, bony fish that cleans the bay's water, props up its ecosystem and provides humans with valuable omega-3 fatty acid extract from its oil. Environmentalists say that overfishing might be devastating the bay's stocks. Virginia's commercial menhaden fishers counter that the sparse data on the bay's fish population don't prove any dangerous drop. But thanks to the good efforts of Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) last week, both sides agree that it's time for a real scientific study to determine what's happening to the bay's menhaden.
The governor's plan, which still requires the General Assembly's okay, is to cap menhaden fishing in the bay for five years while area scientists complete research on the local population of the species. The proposed cap is a modest limit of 109,000 metric tons annually -- about the average menhaden catch for the last five years. The idea is to keep harvesting constant while studies are underway, both to measure what effects the current level of fishing is doing to menhaden stocks and to prevent increases in harvesting in case early indications of stock depletion are true.
Critically, the primary menhaden fishing company, Omega Protein Corp., has signed on to the plan along with local environmentalists. Omega helped defeat a slightly lower cap proposed this year by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which oversees fishing on the East Coast. But the company says it supports the new cap, probably in part because the federal government might have shut down all Chesapeake menhaden fishing operations if Virginia failed to act. With the company's support, we hope that the legislature will quickly approve Mr. Kaine's cap. We also trust that the research -- which requires the company's participation in counting bay menhaden -- will proceed smoothly.
As productive as the governor's proposal is, however, it is only a short-term band-aid to what may be a long-term environmental crisis. If studies confirm that depleted menhaden schools are not as able to clean the water as thoroughly they used to, contributing to the bay's environmental decline, Virginia will require something more than a modest harvesting cap to repair the problem.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Frozen FishingA proposal to cap harvests of a single fish in the Chesapeake Bay is a good compromise -- for now.
Sunday, August 6, 2006; B06
NOBODY REALLY knows what's happening to the Chesapeake Bay's menhaden, a small, bony fish that cleans the bay's water, props up its ecosystem and provides humans with valuable omega-3 fatty acid extract from its oil. Environmentalists say that overfishing might be devastating the bay's stocks. Virginia's commercial menhaden fishers counter that the sparse data on the bay's fish population don't prove any dangerous drop. But thanks to the good efforts of Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) last week, both sides agree that it's time for a real scientific study to determine what's happening to the bay's menhaden.
The governor's plan, which still requires the General Assembly's okay, is to cap menhaden fishing in the bay for five years while area scientists complete research on the local population of the species. The proposed cap is a modest limit of 109,000 metric tons annually -- about the average menhaden catch for the last five years. The idea is to keep harvesting constant while studies are underway, both to measure what effects the current level of fishing is doing to menhaden stocks and to prevent increases in harvesting in case early indications of stock depletion are true.
Critically, the primary menhaden fishing company, Omega Protein Corp., has signed on to the plan along with local environmentalists. Omega helped defeat a slightly lower cap proposed this year by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which oversees fishing on the East Coast. But the company says it supports the new cap, probably in part because the federal government might have shut down all Chesapeake menhaden fishing operations if Virginia failed to act. With the company's support, we hope that the legislature will quickly approve Mr. Kaine's cap. We also trust that the research -- which requires the company's participation in counting bay menhaden -- will proceed smoothly.
As productive as the governor's proposal is, however, it is only a short-term band-aid to what may be a long-term environmental crisis. If studies confirm that depleted menhaden schools are not as able to clean the water as thoroughly they used to, contributing to the bay's environmental decline, Virginia will require something more than a modest harvesting cap to repair the problem.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
posted by Blake Hite at 7:03 AM
2 Comments:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4621184.stm
Everything in our environment is conected and has a purpose. The sooner we build this educated train of thought into development, agriculture, aquaculture, etc. the sooner humans will reap the benefits of this wisdom.
But the same way of thinking that killed and entire race of people (native americans), a culture in harmony with the earth, continues to exist today.
Thank you Del. Wittman for spotlighting this issue.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Organicbeekeepers/message/27387
Here's another pearl of wisdom that hasn't had much discussion and I'm sure has had detrimental effects on life in the Bay and the Humans like me who consume it.
(Spray Drift)
Let's see. The spray drifts for up to 10 miles.
The bees will forage for up to 5 miles. That's a 15 mile radius. So that's 706 square miles. Then we need a bit of a buffer for good measure so lets add a mile.
That's a 16 mile radius.
So that's 804 square miles.
That's only 515,000 acres you need to control (for the last X years) to make sure you don't get any chemicals...
Do you think there's a spot on
the planet that size that hasn't been sprayed recently?
Michael
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