Frozen fish

Washington Post: Nobody really knows what's happening to the Chesapeake Bay's menhaden, a small, bony fish that cleans the bay's water, props up its ecosystem and provides humans with valuable omega-3 fatty acid extract from its oil. Environmentalists say that overfishing might be devastating the bay's stocks. Virginia's commercial menhaden fishers counter that the sparse data on the bay's fish population don't prove any dangerous drop. But thanks to the good efforts of Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, D, last week, both sides agree that it's time for a real scientific study to determine what's happening to the bay's menhaden.
The governor's plan, which still requires the General Assembly's okay, is to cap menhaden fishing in the bay for five years while area scientists complete research on the local population of the species. The proposed cap is a modest limit of 109,000 metric tons annually -- about the average menhaden catch for the last five years. The idea is to keep harvesting constant while studies are under way, both to measure what effects the current level of fishing is doing to menhaden stocks and to prevent increases in harvesting in case early indications of stock depletion are true.
Counting fish
Critically, the primary menhaden fishing company, Omega Protein Corp., has signed on to the plan along with local environmentalists. Omega helped defeat a slightly lower cap proposed this year by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which oversees fishing on the East Coast. But the company says it supports the new cap, probably in part because the federal government might have shut down all Chesapeake menhaden fishing operations if Virginia failed to act.