Grinding up our fishing future for China

Omega Protein Inc. located in Reedville, Virginia,USA is very busy these days, quietly exporting tons of our most vital forage fish to China and other countries. Atlantic Menhaden are the backbone of America’s east coast marine ecosystem and coastal recreational fishing business.  Omega is the only company left that still grinds up these fish, also known as bunker, down to fishmeal and oil in a procedure called “reduction”.  From Omega’s Reedville location alone they catch, process and reduce over 160,000 metric tons annually of our east coast native menhaden.

As the world’s population increases, so does the demand for fish. People don’t eat menhaden directly, but many of the fish that we commonly eat are farmed fish that are fed menhaden as fishmeal and oil. Omega Protein is strategically positioned to profit from this exploding aquaculture market.(fish farming)

Americans are eating a lot of fish, but now that over 80% of the fish consumed by Americans now comes from overseas fish farms.  Top sellers like farm raised shrimp, salmon, tilapia and Swai or Basa (Pangasious catfish) are fed mass quantities of the menhaden based, protein packed pellets that accelerate growth and get them to market faster.

As if depleting our marine food chain wasn’t enough, the majority of these fish are raised in deplorable, unregulated, contaminated, sewer-like conditions and are then processed with cheap labor, flash frozen and shipped back to American supermarkets and big box stores like Wal Mart and many others. The FDA openly admits that with so much coming over the borders, proper quality control is impossible.

Menhaden are free for the taking and Omega’s captains and crew have become very efficient at catching them. Directed to the acre sized schools by spotter planes, smaller boats swiftly encircle them with a purse seine net, and position the load next to the ship, dropping a large vacuum pump into the penned fish and quickly suck them out. Up a massive hose and into the refrigerated seawater storage hold they go.

They specifically focus on the older, larger fish that bring in the most money.

Unfortunately, these are the same fish that produce the most eggs and determine the future of the menhaden and to our fishing.

Menhaden have historically ranged from Maine to Florida, but now with stocks at the lowest point in history, the upper and lower portions of the biomass are gone and now predominantly left in the Mid to upper Atlantic region, roughly from Cape Cod to the Carolinas. You don’t have to be a marine biologist to see that something is very wrong here, the writing is on the wall and it reads “Warning- biomass collapse level reached-reduce catch now or pay the price later”

Insisting that they are operating a “sustainable operation”, publicly held Omega protein has clearly taken a blind eye to this and continues to vacuum up the very fish that provide essential nutrition for Striped Bass, Bluefin Tuna, Weakfish and many other fish and marine mammal species that occupy the top strata of the marine food chain. Company spokesmen continue to boast that spotter plane pilots are seeing more bunker than ever before, while tuna fishermen in New England and fishermen in Florida havent seen abundant adult schools in years.  ASMFC scientific study teams have released data that concluded that Atlantic menhaden overfishing has been occurring for 52 of the past 54 years, regardless of this, Omega Protein continues to selfishly profit from this wild resource while our fishing related businesses along the coast go bust.

A 2010 study by the economic James Kirkley at the Virginia Institute of Marine Resources found that the reduction industry has an $88 million economic impact on the Chesapeake Bay region, supplying 300 jobs at Omega Protein, and 219 jobs in industries supported by the reduction fishery. But those figures pale in comparison to recreational fishing activities, which have a $332 million economic impact in Virginia and Maryland, and supports 3,500 jobs in those two states alone.

Sadly, Menhaden are one of the few fish left that remain unregulated, yes, there is no limit on the amount of these fish that can be caught. But, this is about to change and you can do something about this insanity and help to change the way Omega does business.The Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission (ASMFC) will vote to put catch limits on this fishery on December 14th. The outcome of this vote will tell all of us if the ASMFC truly cares about our sport, our jobs, and our environment. Visit the website MenhadenDefenders.org and just click on the menhaden.

 

Grinding up our fishing future for China

Grinding up our fishing future for China

Omega Protein Inc. located in Reedville, Virginia,USA is very busy these days, quietly exporting tons of our most vital forage fish to China and other countries. Atlantic Menhaden are the backbone of America’s east coast marine ecosystem and coastal recreational fishing business.  Omega is the only company left that still grinds up these fish, also known as bunker, down to fishmeal and oil in a procedure called “reduction”.  From Omega’s Reedville location alone they catch, process and reduce over 160,000 metric tons annually of our east coast native menhaden.

As the world’s population increases, so does the demand for fish. People don’t eat menhaden directly, but many of the fish that we commonly eat are farmed fish that are fed menhaden as fishmeal and oil. Omega Protein is strategically positioned to profit from this exploding aquaculture market.(fish farming)

Americans are eating a lot of fish, but now that over 80% of the fish consumed by Americans now comes from overseas fish farms.  Top sellers like farm raised shrimp, salmon, tilapia and Swai or Basa (Pangasious catfish) are fed mass quantities of the menhaden based, protein packed pellets that accelerate growth and get them to market faster.  

As if depleting our marine food chain wasn’t enough, the majority of these fish are raised in deplorable, unregulated, contaminated, sewer-like conditions and are then processed with cheap labor, flash frozen and shipped back to American supermarkets and big box stores like Wal Mart and many others. The FDA openly admits that with so much coming over the borders, proper quality control is impossible.

Menhaden are free for the taking and Omega’s captains and crew have become very efficient at catching them. Directed to the acre sized schools by spotter planes, smaller boats swiftly encircle them with a purse seine net, and position the load next to the ship, dropping a large vacuum pump into the penned fish and quickly suck them out. Up a massive hose and into the refrigerated seawater storage hold they go.

They specifically focus on the older, larger fish that bring in the most money.

 Unfortunately, these are the same fish that produce the most eggs and determine the future of the menhaden and to our fishing.

Menhaden have historically ranged from Maine to Florida, but now with stocks at the lowest point in history, the upper and lower portions of the biomass are gone and now predominantly left in the Mid to upper Atlantic region, roughly from Cape Cod to the Carolinas. You don’t have to be a marine biologist to see that something is very wrong here, the writing is on the wall and it reads “Warning- biomass collapse level reached-reduce catch now or pay the price later”

Insisting that they are operating a "sustainable operation", publicly held Omega protein has clearly taken a blind eye to this and continues to vacuum up the very fish that provide essential nutrition for Striped Bass, Bluefin Tuna, Weakfish and many other fish and marine mammal species that occupy the top strata of the marine food chain. Company spokesmen continue to boast that spotter plane pilots are seeing more bunker than ever before, while tuna fishermen in New England and fishermen in Florida havent seen abundant adult schools in years.  ASMFC scientific study teams have released data that concluded that Atlantic menhaden overfishing has been occurring for 52 of the past 54 years, regardless of this, Omega Protein continues to selfishly profit from this wild resource while our fishing related businesses along the coast go bust.

A 2010 study by the economic James Kirkley at the Virginia Institute of Marine Resources found that the reduction industry has an $88 million economic impact on the Chesapeake Bay region, supplying 300 jobs at Omega Protein, and 219 jobs in industries supported by the reduction fishery. But those figures pale in comparison to recreational fishing activities, which have a $332 million economic impact in Virginia and Maryland, and supports 3,500 jobs in those two states alone.

 

Sadly, Menhaden are one of the few fish left that remain unregulated, yes, there is no limit on the amount of these fish that can be caught. But, this is about to change and you can do something about this insanity and help to change the way Omega does business.The Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission (ASMFC) will vote to put catch limits on this fishery on December 14^th. The outcome of this vote will tell all of us if the ASMFC truly cares about our sport, our jobs, and our environment. Visit the website Menhaden Defenders.org and just click on the menhaden.

You Can Help Restore Menhaden

Take action to help restore the Atlantic menhaden population to sustainable levels:

1. Attend a public hearing in your state to show support for menhaden conservation. Check the dates here:
   Menhaden Public Hearings Calendar / Facebook Events
   


2. Contact the Menhaden Management Board explaining that the menhaden landings must be cut by 50 percent:
   Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
   
   Menhaden Management Board
   
   1050 N. Highland St., Suite 200 A-N
   
   Arlington, VA 22201
   
   Phone: 703.842.0740 / Fax: 703.842.0741
   comments@asmfc.org
   


3. Call you Congressperson and ask him or her to support legislation to protect menhaden to fulfill the feeding needs of predators like striped bass, bluefish, humpback whales, and sharks:
   
   Find your House Representative and Senators
   


4. Contact the editor of your local paper explaining why forage fish populations need to be protected through conservative management:
   List of Local News Papers by State
   


5. Sign up to receive email updates from Menhaden Defenders and like us on Facebook:
   Email Signup / Menhaden Defenders on Facebook
   

 

You Can Help Restore Menhaden

TAKE ACTION: Menhaden Draft Amendment 2

€œThe most important fish in the sea has been put through more than 50 years of overfishing.

The stock is at a record low.  Who is suffering from the loss of menhaden? You are.

Striped bass, bluefish and other game fish have lost 90 percent of their favorite food source over the last 25 years alone.

In 1955, menhaden made up 77 percent of the diet of striped bass. Now, menhaden account for just 7 percent. Young striped bass are increasingly eating weakfish juveniles to supplement their diets, putting both stocks at risk. Bluefish eat 30 percent less menhaden than they did in the early €90s. As fisherman, we need to unite and let the ASMFC hear us loud and clear.

The public comment period is now open and it'€™s time to put the regulations into effect for the 2013 season.

Click the bunker to submit your comments to your Governor, Congress People, and the Fishery Management Plan Coordinator:

TAKE ACTION NOW

TAKE ACTION: Menhaden Draft Amendment 2

NJ fishing guide urges public to speak out against overfishing

My name is Capt. Paul Eidman and I am a New Jersey fishing guide on the Jersey shore. I’ve been on the water my entire life, as was my father, his father and my great grandfather. As a fishing guide, I depend on abundant schools of Menhaden, or Bunker as we call them to attract the striped bass, bluefish, weakfish and everything else clients fish for. Without bunker, our sport of saltwater fishing, as we know it would be ruined.  

Concerned fisherman and others always ask me what’s going on with the bunker. It’s a complicated subject, but to sum it all up, the story is that over the past 25 years we have lost over 90 percent of our bunker population to the unregulated netting by the commercial fishing fleet. Hard to believe that bunker are the only fish around that are still unregulated. These companies can take as many fish as they want. There are NO limits.


Onboard view of an Omega Industrial bunker haul



Small scale, traditional inshore bait seine netter

bunker are highly sought after by several bait netting companies in the Mid Atlantic for use as commercial lobster and crab bait, but by far the biggest volume of fish is taken by one company called Omega Protein Inc.

Omegas East coast division factory ships and spotting planes come out of a small port in Reedville, on the Virginia side of the Chesapeake bay. Omega is the only company lands a greater volume of fish than every other fishery in the United States. As we speak, Omega Protein is vacuuming up Menhaden from our coastal waters at the rate of over 150,000 tons per season. The company grinds the bunker into fish meal and oil, for use in a zillion products, including pet foods, animal feed and fish oil pills.

Chinese catfish sold as SWAI or BASA in America

Over 50% of Omega Proteins sales revenue come from Asia, which means that America’s fish are being ground up and shipped off to China. Fish that we eat all the time are raised in huge farms all over Asia. Farm raised Salmon, Tilapia, Shrimp, and Swai/Basa (catfish) are all fed American menhaden meal, while our stripers, blues and tuna starve in the Atlantic.

Tilapia fattened up on Menhaden Meal to get to market faster

To make things worse, when those Chinese fish are fattened up for the market, many are shipped back to the U.S. for consumers to purchase. Cheap bagged up frozen fish lining the end caps at Walmart or your local grocer have become the norm and economically depressed American families are buying them up nationwide. America’s fisherman could be the ones profiting from abundant bunker, but instead, our bait fish are shipped 7,000 miles away to feed tilapia.


Meanwhile, our gamefish are scrawny and hungry. 70% of the stripers in the Chesapeake bay have mycobacteriosis, or MYCO a life threatening disease related directly to malnutrition. There’s fewer bunker for everyone. Stripers are out competing weakfish for food and eating weakfish juveniles when they cant get enough Menhaden. Our ecosystem, fisherman and related business are going to go down in flames if we don’t cut back NOW on the numbers of bunker the industry catches.



MYCO lesions on a Striped Bass

Future sustainability depends upon a lot of things, but it all starts this fall. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries commission (ASMFC) will be deciding just how much to cut back the menhaden catch. It’s up to you to stand up and let them know how important the bunker are to you. Tell them that you are expecting them to do the right thing and vote with mother nature and not against it.

Fresh Bunker in baskets for bait shops

A rebuilt, abundant stock of bunker would have immense benefits for small business up and down the coast, from bait and tackle stores to charter boats, marina operations and to independent fisherman using cast nets that supply our bait shops.

But if we don’t act, we risk collapsing our bunker population even further- with 90 percent already gone, how much more can we afford to sacrifice? We want our stripers and we want our blues- we need our bunker.

Omega fishing with no end in sight

Let’s stand together to make sure that corporate greed and lobbying don’t win over common sense. Reach out to us at the Menhaden Defenders website or on Facebook and get involved today. Follow us on twitter. Our ocean and fishing depends on you!

 

Menhaden Defenders letter to the ASMFC

Dr. Louis B. Daniel III
Vice Chair
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission

Dr. Daniel and fellow commissioners,
Thank you for this opportunity to make comments. We are encouraged by the commissioners that are continuing holding the course on sustainability and put an end to the industrial slaughter once and for all.
The Atlantic Menhaden situation has become very visible and the actions of the ASMFC commissioners are being watched by thousands of concerned citizens and fisherman. The facts are in and current data has made it very clear that overfishing has occurred 52 out of the past 54 years. Population levels of this species have dwindled from 200 billion fish down 88% to an all time century low of 20 billion fish. Older, egg laden adult fish continue to be taken out of our waters in very large numbers and the overall biomass of menhaden has shrunken dramatically and the bunker have as well.
On my home waters of Raritan Bay in New Jersey, the bunkers have always been very large, with the majority of the fish measuring well over a foot long, over the past two seasons I have noticed that they have shrunken down to 10 inches and smaller.
I see this lack of larger, older fish as yet another warning sign. Never, in over 30 years of fishing the bay have I seen bunkers of this size. Add this to what I have seen over the past 6 years with the complete disappearance of the acres of young peanut sized bunkers that used to trigger our annual fall blitz fishing for stripers, bluefish and weakfish. I realize that this is anecdotal, but as an observant fisherman, this clearly tells me that things are changing for the worse.
As the leader of Menhaden Defenders, fisherman reach out to me all the time, and they are sincerely concerned and worried. Unfortunately, New Jersey, New York and Delaware Bay anglers are the only ones that I hear good news from as they have plentiful bunkers still in the water. The Southern Fisherman are saying the same exact thing as the New England fisherman. The bait fish they all relied upon for good, consistent fishing are gone. The fish that they used to have acres of, have simply vanished.
This isn’t about hurting Omega Protein. This is about hurting the ecosystem, along with thousands of recreational fisherman, and related businesses that all thrive with an abundant menhaden population. To be direct, recreational fisherman have had ENOUGH. We are tired of the future of our waters being determined by commercial interests. We are tired of the greedy needs of a few benefiting at the expense of the masses. The days of ZERO catch limits are over, as there are just too many creatures that depend on this species for survival.
The ASMFC has the opportunity to be on the right side of history and finally alter what we have come to know as the normal historical cycle of this fishery: abundance, overfishing, crash, stop fishing, resurgence. It’s up to all of the commissioners to continue to move forward and protect the remaining menhaden population. This fish is the life blood of our waters and we are all depending on you to continue to make the right decisions and vote with  mother nature and not big business.
All of us hope that the ASMFC will consider the ecosystem first as the primary concern, protecting it so that the striped bass, weakfish, bluefish and other species that need menhaden to survive and thrive get their share of menhaden first. History has proven if we do not have enough menhaden for the ecosystem, the system will fail.
Thank you,
Capt. Paul Eidman
Founder, Menhaden Defenders

MINI NEEDS MENHADEN!

"MINI"

Our grassroots group, "Menhaden Defenders" has been working with fellow anglers to increase awareness and get fisherman involved in the fight because they are on the front lines and have watched this vital forage fish vanish right before their eyes.

After sitting before the Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission (ASMFC) last week, it frustrated me to listen to our publicly appointed commissioners openly debate whether or not there is “enough good data” to move forward with the catch limits they agreed to put in place last November. This meeting made it even more apparent to me that now is the time for us to increase our outreach beyond the recreational fishing community. The industry has its attorneys and lobbyists in place and they are making every attempt to delay this process so they can continue to fish at the unrestricted, breakneck pace they are used to.

A senior member of the pod

Angler outcry and participation is simply not enough as this issue goes so much deeper than fishing. Menhaden fish, in one form or another, are in our lives and due to our seemingly insatiable Omega-3 fever, continue to thrive on our grocer's and pharmacy shelves. Consumers can't even begin to perceive the products that it is used in, sprayed on, or grown with. Menhaden or Bunker as we call them here, have been depleted to the lowest levels ever recorded.
Menhaden are the backbone of the marine food web and vitally important to an amazing number of creatures both in the water and along its shores. People everywhere need to know that commercial overfishing has reduced (pun intended) Atlantic Menhaden stocks over 88% from what they used to be. Put simply, if there is not a significant catch limit placed upon this fishery now, we are looking at an ecological disaster in the making.

As the ASMFC continues thru this fall with its debate of exactly how much of a catch limit to implement and how many tons of reduced landings each of the two sectors will have to absorb, the demise continues. The bunkers are purse seined and vacuumed up by the ton, ground up and turned into fish meal/fish oil (reduction sector-156K mt) and lobster/crab bait (Bait sector-45K mt). Together, both sectors net over 200,000 metric tons of bunker out of Mid Atlantic waters each year with the majority of landings recorded in Virginia and New Jersey.

An Omega Protein processing ship   photo credit: Jetski Brian

Large schools of adult, foot long bunker gather up en masse along Jersey beaches every summer.  Sad to say, the Jersey shore is one of the few spots left on the East coast where this still actually happens. 
Many of the menhaden schools north of Cape Cod and south of the Carolinas  have simply vaporized. 
Right here in central NJ, I see tractor trailer trucks with containers filled with bunker and ice headed back to Maine loaded up with Jersey bunker for use as lobster bait. You know things are really bad when lobstermen have to pay a trucker to drive over 8 hours (433 miles) one way from Booth Bay Harbor, Maine just to get bait. This upper and lower range absence should be incentive alone to implement a catch reduction. Marine biologists agree that this is a clear indication that the overall biomass of the stock has shrunken down.

Most of our large stripers that were here in the springtime have headed north to seek cooler waters, but the marine mammals, sharks, tuna, osprey and other top predators all capitalize on this warm water and the incredible bunker bounty.

Bunker Tails

Speaking of New Jersey, a perfect example happened recently. Sleeping in one day, I decided to go on what my fishing buddies and I call a “chick” trip. I suggested a boat ride to my girlfriend to go out dolphin watching. If you refer to the “man handbook”, these random acts of kindness are secretly offered up to our mates to gain points now, so that when we vanish into our fall fishing madness it is almost acceptable. We hitched my boat up to the truck, launched and cleared the inlet and in no time, we were right in the middle of a really big school of bunker. Seeing this, I was hopeful that we would come upon a pod or two of our bottle-nosed buddies.

Sure enough, they appeared right next to us, dozens of them, entire families or “pods” as they are called. Cavorting about, jumping and smashing the waters with tails and then swirling around to feast upon the protein packed little fish. 
Most thrilling were the young ones, one of which we named “Mini”. My girlfriend was in awe and could not believe her eyes. She had never seen anything like this and was overwhelmed with joy. It brought tears to her eyes when she saw Mini with its mother feeding together in the school.

She has attended my talks and hears me speak about bunker all the time, but this single event has turned her into a vocal advocate and now she is emphatic about saving the bunker. She finds it unbelievable that there is no limit on how many of these fish can be caught and unacceptable that there is not more being done about it. 

We all need to make sure that there are enough bunker in the water for "Mini" to feed on and thrive. While the ASMFC is deliberating, we can all do our part as consumers and pay attention in the grocery and pharmacy aisles.  Learn more about items enhanced with “Omega 3” and simply stop buying them. Select your fish oil products carefully and switch over to sustainably sourced oils like Flaxseed. Make sure your dogs and cats aren’t eating food containing “herring” or “Ocean fish” as these are just a few of the industries code words that are used to describe menhaden ingredients.

A drop in sales will send a clear message to the companies selling these products and ultimately get them to remove menhaden based ingredients and put an end to the antiquated practice of depleting the food web. The days of robbing a meal from wildlife in order to produce our food cheaper need to end.

It is my hope that everybody reading this will do even more than changing personal buying habits. Remember to show up at the local public hearings scheduled for this fall and tell your your states ASMFC commissioners how you feel and hope that they will think twice when making decisions. Please speak up and write to our congressional delegates and make sure that they save Mini’s next meal. Let them know how important it is to put a limit on the Atlantic Menhaden fishery and allow the stock to rebuild for the future.