Atlantic menhaden

Atlantic Menhaden
Atlantic Menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Actinopterygii Order: Clupeiformes Family: Clupeidae Genus: Brevoortia Species: B. tyrannus
Binomial name
Brevoortia tyrannus (Latrobe, 1802)

Introduction

The Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) is a silvery, highly compressed fish in the herring family, Clupeidae.^[1][2] A filter feeder, it lives on plankton caught in midwater. An adult fish can filter up to four gallons of water a minute and they play an important role in clarifying ocean water. They are also a natural check to the deadly red tide.^[3]

Menhaden historically occurred in large numbers in the North Atlantic, ranging from Nova Scotia, Canada to central Florida, USA, although their presence in northern waters has diminished in the 20th Century. They swim in large schools, some reportedly up to 40 miles long. As a result of their abundance they are important prey for a wide range of predators including bluefish, striped bass cod, haddock, halibut, mackerel, swordfish, and tuna.^[3]

Fishing

Menhaden B. tyrannus from the Chesapeake Bay

The Atlantic menhaden is popular for use as live or dead bait. The fish is notorious for its rapid deterioration when caught, as well as its bony and oily makeup. As a result, they are primarily used for the production of Fish meal, oil and fertilizer. It is likely the fish that Squanto taught the Pilgrims to bury alongside freshly planted seeds as fertiliser. It went on to be used for this purpose on a large scale on farmland on the Atlantic coast, though this process was stopped after it was realized that the oily fish parched the soil.^[4][3]

In recent years their population is considered to be sustainable coastwide, though a possibility for a localized depletion exists in the Chesapeake Bay due to a concentrated harvest.^[5] Omega Protein, a Houston, Texas-based company that has a virtual monopoly on the menhaden reduction industry in the United States, uses a process known as purse-seining to corral and remove from the water entire schools of menhaden, often numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Purse seining has been outlawed by every Atlantic coast state except Virginia and North Carolina. Tremendous algae blooms that starve the bay of sunlight and oxygen have been attributed to a diminished menhaden population due to the menhaden's important role as a filter feeder of algae and other phytoplankton. Significant malnutrition and disease in one of its primary predators, the striped bass, is also widespread in the Chesapeake.

Also called pogy, mossbunker, bug fish, alewife, shad, greasetail, bunker, bunker fish and fat back.^[4]

References

1. ^ Brevoortia tyrannus (TSN 161732). Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Accessed on 30 January 2006.
2. ^ "Brevoortia tyrannus". FishBase. Ed. Ranier Froese and Daniel Pauly. 10 2005 version. N.p.: FishBase, 2005.
3. ^ ^{a b c} H. Bruce Franklin (March 2006). Net Losses. Mother Jones. Retrieved on 21 February, 2006. Extensive article on the role of menhaden in the ecosystem and possible results of overfishing.
4. ^ ^{a b} George Brown Goode (1887). The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States. Section V. History and Methods of the Fisheries. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. 
5. ^ ASMFC 2005

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