Ladies and Gentelmen. Please help me keep a grave injustice from happening in NC. Please send an e-mail to Rob Bizzell bizzyb@coastalnet.com voicing your opinion.The NCDMF is having a meeting to discuss allowing Menhaden to be harvested in our inshore waters. The Menhaden is THE MOST important fish in our ocean. There are no Menhaden Boats in NC. There are no processing plants in NC. So we get no Tax, No Jobs from the harvest of our most important fish. Not to mention when they are harvested inshore there is lots of by-catch (red Drum, Dolphin and Birds). Here are some pics of what heppens when we have inshore purse seining of Menhaden.
eastcoast why dont you handle one problem at a time like the fact that its legal to gill net red drum and other species in your state as well as guides that take people out to gill net species on charters. put some game fish status on your fish so that cant be harvested for sale.
I don’t know for sure what this is about, and I don’t want to argue with anyone about it, but I can certainly imagine some pretty serious consequences of allowing the large-scale, inshore, commercial harvesting of menhaden. That sounds like something you’d hear about going on in Japan. The pictures don’t fit the description, and I don’t know what fish is most important to the ecosystem, but I do know that a lot of sealife does heavily depend on menhaden as a food source, and allowing large-scale commercial netting to go on inshore seems nothing short of reckless to me for a lot of reasons. There are much more serious concerns, but one that I can readily identify as a recreational fisherman begins with imagining all the local, live-baiting, recreational fishermen and charter guides not being able to catch menhaden for bait anymore because they are so thinned out by a large commecial fishing industry. Another, more serious concern would be the bycatch. It sounds like a pretty real threat to species like speckled trout. I don’t know if these are substantial and valid concerns or not, but they seem logical. It really depends on the details, though, and I don’t know them. I also think people may be a little wary about jumping the gun and reacting to this because there are so many hoaxes out there, EC. This may be for real, but people need to know that for sure, or they won’t have confidence to help. Can you please provide more detail and information, EC? This is a side-bar question, but what do they want to harvet menhaden for, anyway?
Gotcha Covered,
Lee Strickland
Strickland Marine Insurance, Inc.
843-795-1000 / 800-446-1862
Aren’t menhaden one of the sources for the manufacturing of the fish oil caplets most of the cardiologist are recommending we take for a healthy heart and circulatory system
?
Menhaden is used for fish meal, fish oil, protein in livestock/fish feeds and fertilizer.
Due the gulf oil crisis this year, fish meal that we use for shrimp baiting went up $$$$ thru the roof.
That’s why folks want to harvest more at this point in time especially I would guess.
Back in the day, there were supposedly dark swarms of them for miles off the beaches. They were easily harvested and used by the indians as fertilizer and later on the menhaden and oil were used for a variety of things like lamp oil, paint, soap, and fertilizer. Used mostly for livestock and human nutritional purposes now it seems.
North Carolna needs to do something about the netting. Think about it. The tourist dollars they could reap with more charters, guides, lodges, etc would big time outway the benefit of the few who are still netting these fish because of tradition or whatever. Where the Hell is the CCA on this?? They should start a boycott of NC seafood like was done with swordfish years ago.
