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Fisheries Regulators OK Menhaden Limits

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  • Peter Baker

    Peter Baker

    Director, Northeast Fisheries Program

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Associated Press

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Steve Szkotak

Fisheries regulators voted Wednesday to reduce by more than one-third the harvest of menhaden, a small fish that plays a big ecological role in the health of the Chesapeake Bay and the fish that swim in its waters.

Meeting in Boston, the menhaden board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted to cut the annual harvest by 37 percent, according to calculations by the Pew Environmental Group. The new harvest limit, which is subject to a vote by the full commission in one year, would be effective in 2013.

Approximately 460 million pounds of Atlantic menhaden were caught in 2010, primarily by trawlers that scoop up the fish in nets in the bay and along portions of the coast. Lobstermen in Maine and Massachusetts and bay crabbers also use the oily fish to bait their traps.

…

"They did the right thing today," said Peter Baker of the Pew Group. "I think they heard the public loud and clear."

The commission held 13 public hearings on menhaden and received nearly 92,000 comments, the vast majority seeking to limit the harvest.

…

"The abundance of menhaden and the number of menhaden in the water, over the last 30 years, has been reduced by more than 80 percent," Baker said. He called the vote a "watershed moment."

Read the full article, Fisheries Regulators OK Menhaden Limits on the Boston Globe website.

 

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