When I saw the headline,” Omega Protein Gains Certification” come across my email in-box Wednesday morning I thought it was Capt. John McMurray playing an email joke on me. I thought maybe be he was punch drunk from getting up at 3am every morning and fishing Jamaica Bay, then heading into the city for work, then heading home and having to deal with contractors who are re-doing his new kitchen and then eating out (ie staying out late), basically getting no sleep. (Yes, when you talk with fishing guides/writers every day, this is the sort of thing you hear about besides fishing when the season gets in full swing) Then I thought about it and realized there was no way he could pull this one off with as little sleep as he had, it would have taken too much energy of which he did not have. Then I checked the calendar just to make sure I was not losing my mind and it was May, so it definitely was not an April fools joke. And to compound this whole possible delusion I thought I was having, I was a friend’s party this past weekend and I still had not yet fully recovered from my sleep deprivation (yes you young guys reading this out there, as you get older it takes longer to recover from 2am parties) so I decided to just follow the link in the email John sent. Sure enough, is was no John joke, but true, Omega Protein had been certified as a “Friend of the Sea”. In the news story it explains,

“Friend of the Sea, an independent organisation, used the following guidelines to certify applicants for sustainability:

. Target stocks cannot be considered overexploited;

. The applicant’s fishing methods cannot impact the seabed; and

. There must be a generation of less than average (8%) discards.

“The Menhaden Fishery, the second biggest fishery in the United States, has been found compliant with Friend of the Sea standards by an independent audit,” comments Dr Paolo Bray, director of Friend of the Sea.

“This is a great result for Friend of the Sea, which would have not been possible without Omega Protein’s strong environmental commitment.”

Well, I guess what can you expect from an organization that can not even spell “organization” correctly in their press release/article (see above, I cut and paste). Yea, I know, that’s a pretty weak jab, but I could not help it, “joke” organizations like this just frustrate the heck out me. So let me hit it with a little more substance; I guess when Friend of the Sea conducted their independent audit they did not take into account the three to four friendly spotter planes Omega’s menhaden fleet uses to locate the menhaden schools and then move in with their monstrous ships where they circle the menhaden school and then suck up every last menhaden. Friend of the sea is definitely no “friend” of the menhaden that is for sure.

I guess “Friend of the Sea” is not a “friend” of all the fish that depend on the menhaden for food, like for instance the striped bass which regularly feed and rely on menhaden for their diet.

I guess “Friend of the Sea” is not a “friend” of the sea birds that rely on menhaden for food.

I guess”Friend of the Sea is not a “friend” to recreational anglers. When Omega gets the coordinates on a school of menhaden they will stop at nothing to get them. If that means basically running over recreational anglers who are fishing an area where the menhaden are, well, then so be it. They do not care. I can talk about this because I have been there, fishing on breaking striped bass when being about circled by the menhaden boat’s nets, left with no option other then getting the heck out of the way or getting run over. Hundreds of other anglers can attest to similar situations as well.

Below are some pictures from December 15, 2006 when friend and Lateral Line Ambassador, Cory Ruthless Routh and I were fishing at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and at times in the Atlantic Ocean off of Virginia Beach, basically in the Cape Henry area, for striped bass. We were there along with several hundred other recreational anglers when sure enough the menhaden fleet showed up and wiped out every last menhaden in the area, but not before about running over whoever they had to to get to them. Guess what happened once they set their nets and sucked up all the menhaden? If you guessed the catching of striped bass stopped, you are on the money. Omega is definitely not a friend of recreational angler and I guess since Friends of the Sea certified Omega, they are not friends of the recreational angler either.

Omega will tell you that they have little by-catch, that they do not bully recreational anglers when fishing in the same area, that their nets do not destroy the sea bottom and even that the fishing they are doing is sustainable. Sustainable, ahh, yet another joke. Omega Protein is the last commerical menhaden operation left along the Atlantic Coast. Why did all the other commerical menhaden operations go out of business? Was it because they did not have the operational expertise that Omega has? Were the economics so much different for them that it just did not make business sense? Or could it be that with so many commercial operations along the Atlantic Coast they simply wiped out so many of the menhaden that they could not catch enough to make any money. If you guessed that one, you guessed right.

I have another joke to tell while I have your attention. On March 14, 2005 Neils Moore of the Menhaden Resource Council (and I might add a lobbyist for Omega Protein) stood up and at the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin’s meeting and explained why menhaden were declining. According to Moore, it has/had nothing to do with over-exploitation or non-sustainable harvests by the commerical menhaden industry, but rather he explained that too many striped bass were eating the menhaden. Apparently, accounts of those at the meeting say that Moore’s solution proposal to the situation was to let commerical fishermen deal with striped bass the way farmers deal with locusts. How is that for a good joke.

So here I am at the keyboard left wondering just who “Friends of the Sea” is actaully friends with? My only conclusion is that “Friends of the Sea” is a friend to organizations that practice non-sustainable fishing practices.

That’s enough of my ranting. Let’s do something. I put together a petition that you can download, print and send to our Lateral Line Foundation that supports grass roots efforts like this. We will collect all the petitions and put them in the right hands so we can make a difference.

The petition is below. You can simply print this page out and fill it in and send to us or download a PDF version here via email scanned in (Brandon@LateralLineCo.com) or snail mail it to me.

You can send petitions in via snail mail to:

Lateral Line Foundation
PO Box 1816
Easton, MD 21601

If you are so inclined please take some copies to your local fishing shops and ask them to get them signed and send them to us. If you are a shop owner or work at a shop and are willing to do this I will list you in this thread as a sponsor of the initiative along with all your contact information for your shop and link to your shop to help you for helping the fish. Email me at: Brandon@LateralLineCo.com.

Let’s make a difference!

Brandon

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Menhaden Reduction Petition

The below voting citizens and recreational anglers request the following:

1. The undersigned request that the State of Virginia cut the current menhaden harvest within the Chesapeake Bay and territorial sea to a combined total of 60,000 Metric Tons per year.

(The current limit is 109,000 MT within the bay, there is no limit for the waters outside of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel but within VA waters. Once they reach that limit they simply move the gear outside of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel)

2. Request that the legislature modify state code section 28.2-409 such that all state waters less than thirty-five (35) feet deep are included as exclusionary areas, in order to protect important recreational and commercial species which live at the bottom of the water column from capture or disturbance by the seventy-five (75) foot deep purse seines.

3. That the season for menhaden within Virginia’s territorial sea be closed between the Saturday following the third Friday in November and the Sunday preceding the first Monday in May. This closure is requested in order to protect the juvenile menhaden that are leaving the bay and to reduce the gear conflict issues between the purse seine fishery and the recreational and commercial striped bass fisheries.

4. That any species covered by a commercial quota that are retained by the purse seine fishery as part of their allowed 1% by-catch be estimated and counted against those commercial quotas. Specific species of concern are striped bass, speckled trout, bluefish and summer flounder.

Signature

Full Name:

Address

City ST Zip

Email Address: @

Phone number

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