Brevoortia tyrannus

Conservation

A member of the herring family, Atlantic menhaden, also known as bunker or pogy, is a relatively small, oily fish that supports both commercial and recreational fisheries and plays an enormous role in the ecosystem, as well. Eggs and larvae spawned during late winter through spring are carried by tides and currents into bays and estuaries which serve as their prime nursery grounds during their first year of life. The following year, they will have reached a size of 6-8” and move out of the estuaries to assume a migratory lifestyle. Schools of similarly sized fish travel north and inshore during spring and summer, and reverse course with cooling temperatures in the fall, with a large portion of the population overwintering off Virginia and North Carolina. Feeding on plankton which they filter out of the water as they swim, menhaden develop quickly, reaching maturity by around 10” and 2-3 years old. Adults commonly survive to age 8 at a size around 12”, although older and larger individuals have been captured.

Even though they are generally not used for human consumption, menhaden support the largest commercial fishery on the Atlantic coast, averaging more than 400 million pounds landed per year in recent years. The majority of this harvest is used for industrial purposes such as fertilizer, livestock feed, and dietary supplements. Approximately 20% of the harvest is used as bait in other fisheries such as commercial fisheries for lobster and blue crab, and recreational blue crab and striped bass fisheries.

In addition to supporting significant commercial and recreational fisheries, menhaden play an important role in the ecosystem, serving as prey for many other species, including predatory fish (like striped bass, bluefish, and tuna), marine mammals (whales and dolphins), and sea birds. Their importance in the food web is so great that it has led to concerns that overharvest could affect populations of some species that depend on it for food. For this reason, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which coordinates management of menhaden and other species among the 15 Atlantic coastal states, has recently implemented a management strategy that explicitly accounts for the forage needs of predators when setting catch limits for menhaden. More information can be found in the article, “Flipping the Switch on Ecosystem Management“.

The models used to develop this multispecies management framework are very data intensive. Not only must we have information on fishery removals and population size and structure of the menhaden population, but data on the population size and dietary requirements of key predators are necessary, as well. The information New Jersey DEP Fish and Wildlife provides to support management of some of those species can be found on their respective information pages, such as striped bass and bluefish. With respect to menhaden, data from two surveys conducted by Fish and Wildlife are incorporated into the coastwide stock assessment: the New Jersey Ocean Trawl Survey and the Striped Bass Young of Year Survey. Both surveys provide an index of how strong recruitment is, while the trawl survey also provides an index of adult population size.


More information on this species can be found below:

Description

• silvery fish with dark bluish green back
• pale yellow fins   
• very deep body with deeply forked tail
• dark spot behind gill cover followed by a series of lighter spots

Size

• up to 14 inches

Range

• Nova Scotia to Florida

Facts

• spawn in the ocean but young will spend first year in estuaries
• schooling behavior and superabundance make them the perfect food source for large populations of top predator fish like striped bass
• important for filtering coastal waters due to large numbers of algae they consume
• one of the most abundant fish species in estuarine and coastal Atlantic waters
• feed primarily on plankton