Two lawmakers from Hampton Roads want to change how Virginia regulates the lucrative menhaden fishery in the Chesapeake Bay.
For more than 100 years, politicians in Richmond have overseen the harvesting of menhaden, a silvery bait fish with major commercial and ecological value in the Bay.
It is the only species in state waters governed by legislators; the rest are managed by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission in Newport News.
State Sen. Ralph Northam, D-Norfolk, and Del. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, on Wednesday unveiled bills that would shift authority for setting catch restrictions and quotas for menhaden to the marine commission - a change that the menhaden industry has opposed, and defeated, in the past.
The two legislators said their intent is twofold: more efficient government and more scientifically based management of menhaden, which filter excessive algae in the Bay and are fodder for numerous game fish.
Environmentalists and recreational anglers endorse the bills, representatives of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Coastal Conservation Association said at a news conference Wednesday in Richmond.
Virginia is the only state on the East Coast that still allows the industrial harvesting of menhaden, conducted by a fleet of boats and airplanes that help spot great schools of the fish in coastal waters.
Millions of menhaden are taken to a processing plant owned by Omega Protein in Reedville, a coastal town on the Northern Neck peninsula. There, they are made into pet food, fish oil and omega-3 health supplements. Because they are so oily, menhaden are not eaten by people.
The menhaden industry, a big economic engine on the Northern Neck, has been living under a Baywide quota of 109,020 metric tons per year, a deal brokered in part by the governors of Virginia and Maryland three years ago.
In November, a coastal fishing commission voted to extend the Bay quota three more years, to 2013. Omega Protein, based in Texas, supports the cap and has never violated it, state marine officials said.
In addition to the Northam-Cosgrove bills, the General Assembly will take up another menhaden bill this year, this one to endorse the cap extension to 2013 and keep management in the hands of lawmakers.
Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com
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Second choice
Menhaden are the favorite food of striper. When the Omega factory boats deplete the menhaden, their next favorite food are small crabs, but they are more difficult to catch, resulting in lean and diseased striper.
The larger consequence is the demise of the blue crab fishery from the protected striper. Menhaden are filter feeders, like oysters. The oysters are mostly gone now. Unless the wholesale vacuuming of menhaden from the Virginia shore is stopped, we will have very few blue crabs or striper.
Menhadden first and Stripers next!!!
We need tougher fines to keep the Charter Boat fleet from illegal striper fishing in the EEZ. Take thier boats and gear from them just like we do from poachers who hunt game illegally. Why have a law that is not enforced. Just recently on a fishing website a charter boat Capt. openly admitted to fishing illegally in the EEZ and showed pictures of the fish to boot(no land in site). Talk about rubbing the taxpayers nose in a law they paid to create for the protection of stripers for future generations to fish...what a shame...we need to crack down on these thiefs and greedy bad apples and let them know we mean business when it comes to protecting these fish. More and more Charter boats fishing out of the rudee inlet are taking up the practice of illegal fishing of these great fish.