You Can Help Restore Menhaden

Recent evidence shows that menhaden stocks are down 88% in the last 25 years, from 160 billion to 20 billion fish. "The most important fish in the sea” has been put through more than 50 years of overfishing.

Omega Protein, a Texas-based company, is responsible for more than 80% of the Atlantic menhaden harvest. The company uses spotter planes and large purse seines to net schools of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay and in Atlantic federal waters.  Omega Protein grinds its catch into meal and oil, and sells it as an inexpensive commodity, primarily to fish farming operations in Europe and Asia.

Omega Protein has been doing everything it can to prevent the implementation of a total allowable catch and a rebuilding effort. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, they maintain that menhaden are merely suffering from poor recruitment – their half billion pound harvest has nothing to do with it.

Don’t let them get away with it!

The stock is at a record low. Take action to help restore the Atlantic menhaden population to sustainable levels.

Submit your comments directly to the ASMFC by clicking here.

(via: Menhaden Defenders)

Welcome to the United States Department of Justice

Five charter fishing boat captains operating out of Rudee Inlet in Virginia Beach, Va. – Jeffery S. Adams, Raymond Carroll Webb, David Dwayne Scott, William W. “Duby” Lowery, IV and Nolan L. Agner – were indicted today for violating the Lacey Act by selling illegally harvested Striped Bass, the Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division and the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia announced.  The captains also face charges of making false statements to law enforcement officers and destroying property to prevent its seizure by law enforcement.

If convicted, the men face up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine per count and forfeiture of the boats used during the fishing trips.

The indictment also alleges that, as part of the conspiracy, Adams and others would puncture the air bladder of Striped Bass and, if contacted by law enforcement, would throw illegally-harvested Striped Bass into the sea in hopes of avoiding detection.

LINK (via: USDOJ)

Chesapeake Bay Striper Young of the Year Reproduction at Record Low

Stiripers Forever shares some very disturbing news.

Maryland officials have released information on the 2012 Young of the Year count for striped bass, and it is very bad.

Maryland officials blame the poor results on weather, and they say that there are normal ups and downs in the process. However if you look at the graph that appears in the link, and study the statistics a bit, you will see that spawning success over the last 5 to 10 years is about half of what it was during the 1990s before the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission allowed the commercial catch to return to levels reached prior to the crash of the 70s.

This LINK will take you to the full report on the MD DNR website. 

Make it a Game Fish!

An important update from Stripers Forever on the upcoming hearing on H.206.

Keep America Fishing has built out a webpage that makes it very easy to send a letter on your behalf to the most important Massachusetts legislators on the committee who will be hearing H.206, the bill to make striped bass strictly a game fish in the waters off Massachusetts. Please hit the link and take a few minutes to help the cause.

LINK

If your zip code is outside the zip codes of the target legislators you will need to enter your street address after entering your zip code. A letter will then come up that you can send as is or modify if you wish.

Legislators friendly to the effort efforts have told Stripers Forever that the communications to MA legislators are making a big difference. They do care what you say and they are counting heads!

Please, send that e-mail today and help provide great striped bass fishing for the future.

Take Action for Striped Bass in Massachusetts!

From Stripers Forever -

Hearings are scheduled for the three bills backed by Stripers Forever in the MA Legislature in Room B-1 in the Statehouse Bldg on Beacon Hill in Boston on Feb 28th at 11:00 AM. We must have as many people attend and speak in favor of these bills as possible. If you have wanted to do something to help turn around the decline in striped bass fishing, now is the time, and this is your opportunity!

The bill to conserve striped bass by ending the commercial fishery would go a long way to solving our problems. Recent correspondence with the ASMFC has confirmed that if MA ended its commercial fishery for striped bass that other states would not get the MA quota for their own commercial fisheries. Ending the allowed huge 1,200,000 pound quota, combined with the enormous illegal take of striped bass taken under the cover of the legal fishery, would put a lot more big female stripers on the spawning grounds each season. Our bill also would remove the second striper from the recreational bag limit, and that too would help save a lot of big spawners.~
 
Those who are currently killing and selling these fish, along with some charter boat captains who believe that bagging a second fish per customer is necessary to attract customers, will be there in force to testify against conservation. If we don’t care enough to show up in force we will certainly be defeated. No lobbying effort can make up for angler apathy. We need you on February 28th. If you are not from MA but fish here, own property here, or are from nearby game fish states that are being affected by the commercial fishery in MA, please show up and have your say.
 
After the hearing we’ll be working with our lobbyist and members to get these bills out of Committee and onto the floor for a vote. The commercial lobby will have far less influence on the general assembly, but we must get the bills out of committee to have that debate. In the 1980s the striped bass situation began to turn around almost as soon as the commercial fishery was ended. There are still a lot of large female stripers in the ocean.~ If we can stop the MA commercial fishery it will be a huge step in the right direction and impetus for other states to act.

Be part of the solution!

If you can't attend the hearings you can still help by e-mailing the members of the Mass Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture and urging them to move the three bills out of committee and on to a full floor vote. Links are provided below to the bills and to each committee member, you can e-mail them directly off their individual pages.

The bills

To end the commercial fishery in MA  H.260  

To require the state to protect the health of citizens by testing and labeling wild striped bass sold and consumed. H.259 

To require the state to consider the economic value and importance of the recreational catch when regulating the fishery for striped bass. H.258

Senate Committee Members

Marc R. Pacheco

Senate Chair

James B. Eldridge

Senate Vice Chair

Members

• Daniel A. Wolf
• Benjamin B. Downing
• William N. Brownsberger
• Robert L. Hedlund

House Committee Members

Anne M. Gobi

House Chair

Ann-Margaret Ferrante

House Vice Chair

Members

• Robert M. Koczera
• Carolyn C. Dykema
• Timothy R. Madden
• Gailanne M. Cariddi
• Paul W. Mark
• Christopher M. Markey
• Paul A. Schmid
• Susan Williams Gifford
• Matthew A. Beaton

Proposed California Striped Bass Regs Shot Down

Striper Rise art by Mike Savlen

Remember those shitty new striped bass regulations California Fish and Game was proposing?

In a unanimous decision, Commissioners voted not to pursue a proposal that would have changed sport fishing regulations related to anadromous striped bass, including increasing bag limits and decreasing size limits.

LINK (Cal Department of Fish and Game News)