Back in the course of November, we talked about State Delegate Tim Anderson (R)-Virginia Beach sponsoring a invoice that will put a two-year moratorium to be positioned on business Atlantic menhaden fishing efforts contained in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay. Well, that didn’t bear fruit and sadly for anglers and conservationists, business menhaden fishing will proceed happening within the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay. Commercial fishing companies like Omega Protein can proceed fishing in Virginia for now. The Virginia Marine Resources Commission on Tuesday selected to not place new limits on the business menhaden harvest. This choice got here in after the fee held hours of hearings from roughly three dozen public commentators.
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission board members didn’t make a vote on new rules on the assembly, as an alternative they put ahead and authorised a non-binding movement. In hopes of attempting to succeed in an settlement with the business menhaden fishing trade within the close to future. This assembly and choice is simply one other step in a decades-long combat over these little baitfish.
TheAtlantic Menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) is a smallish silver-scaled baitfish of huge significance. These fish function a serious forage species for a lot of completely different species within the Chesapeake Bay. Being such an important prey species for therefore many species of sportfish within the Chesapeake Bay, the business harvest of them has brought about a number of arguments and rivalry amongst all of the events.
Virginia is the one state alongside the jap seaboard that also permits the business harvest of menhaden in state waters. Commercial harvesters like Omega Protein catches these little fish in massive purse sein nets by the 1000’s of tons. Then takes them to be processed into fish oil and fishmeal at their Reedville facility. The oils and fish meal are used for quite a lot of different industries as uncooked supplies.
Sportfishing teams and environmental teams although have been pushing for a complete ban on the business harvest of menhaden harvest within the Chesapeake Bay. They declare that the environmental value is to nice because of the harvest of the baitfish.Earlier this 12 months a petition caused by the Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association supporting a ban obtained 9,200 signatures.
The new proposed rules this week wouldn’t go almost as far a whole ban of the business purse seining, as an alternative it could simply add in new rules for the business harvest.
