Menhaden quota for 2021 and 2022 is cut 10%

A new way of thinking about fishing quotas will bring a 10% cut in the coastwide cap for menhaden, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission decided Tuesday.

The commission’s menhaden board voted to cut the quota for 2021 and 2022 to 194,400 metric tons from the current 216,000, a 10% reduction.

What drives the cut is a new approach to managing fisheries — an ecosystem-based one pioneered for menhaden, the small fish that is harvested for fish oil and bait and is an important source of food for other fish, birds and whales.

The older technique considers how many young fish join the population of a species in a year, how many die from natural causes and how many are caught. The idea with this traditional approach is to calculate how many can be caught without causing a species’ numbers to fall too far.

Instead, the menhaden board now looks at entire ecosystems and particularly at other fish — striped bass, as a stand-in for all menhaden predators, including bluefish, weakfish and ospreys. Here, the idea is to calculate how many menhaden can be caught without causing other species’ numbers to fall or frustrating conservation officials’ efforts to rebuild threatened species.

“We’re entering a new age in fisheries management,” said A.G. “Spud” Woodward, who represents Georgia on the board.

“It’s like a marriage, and like a marriage, it takes compromise to make it work,” he said, referring to the general agreement between commercial interests, recreational fishermen and conservationists that the ecosystem management approach was the way to go.

On Tuesday, the commission’s menhaden board rejected recommendations by Reedville-based Omega Proteins and six other members of its advisory board to keep the quota at the current level. But it also declined to cut as steeply as Connecticut’s top marine fisheries official, Justin Davis, proposed.

Omega argued for keeping the quota at 216,000 tons because the stock of menhaden is robust and the 60⁄40 risk of exceeding the targeted catch level determined by the new approach was not excessive.

Davis said his suggestion for a steeper, 18% cut in the quota for 2021, with a 6% increase from that lower level in 2022 meant there’d be a 50⁄50 chance of exceeding the target.

That’s the risk level the commission has aimed for, and the lower quota would show the commission was serious about the new approach, Davis said.

Nichola Meserve, representing Massachusetts, proposed the 10% cut, arguing that by 2022, it would come close to the 50⁄50 risk level, especially since the catch has lagged the quota for the past several years.

“We do have to recognize the people whose livelihood is involved,” said Virginia Marine Resources Commissioner Steven Bowman.

He said he’s found in Virginia meetings on menhaden management “everyone is on one side or the other ... nobody seems to be in the middle but sometimes the middle is the way to go,” he said.

Omega spokesman Ben Landry said that the company thought the quota did not need to be cut, since two separate assessments this year showed the current harvest was sustainable. But, he added, the 10% cut “while not preferred, is not an unreasonable step toward moving to ecological management of this species.”

Chris Moore, senior regional ecosystem scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said it was important to set a quota based on the new ecosystem targets.

Growing pressure on menhaden as bait and as forage in New England, where herring numbers are down sharply, is one more sign that the new approach is needed, he said.

“I think the cut was a step in the right direction,” he said.

The cut does not affect the separate cap on how many menhaden may be caught in Chesapeake Bay. The commission cut that cap by 41.5%, to 51,000 tons, in 2017. This year’s cap was set even lower, at 36,192 tons because Omega exceeded the 51,000 ton cap last year.