The controversial menhaden fleet that supplies Omega Proteins’ Reedville plant is promising to limit areas in Chesapeake Bay where it will set its nets and catches fish. In a memorandum of understanding with the state, Ocean Harvesters said it wants to limit potential areas of conflict with other users of the Bay. Conservationists and recreational fishermen had pushed for limits, with some calling for an outright ban on catching menhaden in the Bay, after two spills of dead menhaden last year washed ashore. >click to read< 08:01
Tag Archives: Monty Deihl
A trip with the lone company chasing menhaden in a 140-year tradition on the Chesapeake Bay
It’s an industry that once made the village of Reedville one of the most prosperous in the state — big, brightly-painted three-story Victorian mansions, bedecked with gingerbread woodwork under their generous shade trees line Main Street in testimony to those long gone days. These days, menhaden are at the center of an obscure, if fiercely fought, political battle over who should catch them where, and whether the Omega Proteins fleet that still sails from Reedville is harvesting too many from the Bay. Among the reasons for that concern: Menhaden are an important food source for striped bass. Photo’s >click to read< 07:54
