Menhaden might be the most important fish you've never heard of. As far back as the 1860s, the U.S. caught more tons of menhaden than any other fish -- and in many years, more menhaden than the combined commercial catch of all other finned fish put together. You don't hear about them because they don't show up in fish markets or on dinner menus. Rather, they go into animal feed, cosmetics, health food supplements, linoleum, lubricants, margarine, soap, insecticide, and paint..
... ichthyologist G. Brown Goode said that people who dine on Atlantic saltwater fish eat "nothing but menhaden." H. Bruce Franklin, author of The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden, says Goode exaggerated only slightly, as "menhaden are crucial to the diet of Atlantic tuna, cod, haddock, halibut, mackerel, bluefish, weakfish, striped bass, swordfish, king mackerel, summer flounder, [and] drum" -- to name a few. Marine birds, whales and porpoises also find menhaden delectable.
As you might guess, catching so much of one species of fish takes a toll not only on the population of that one species, but on marine ecology as a whole. Thus, this week, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), the body that regulates fishing on the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida, will vote Wednesday, November 9 on whether to protect menhaden..
