Atlantic menhaden

Taxobox | name = Atlantic Menhaden

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image_width = 240px
image_caption = Atlantic Menhaden ("Brevoortia tyrannus")
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Actinopterygii
ordo = Clupeiformes
familia = Clupeidae
genus = Brevoortia
species = "B. tyrannus"
binomial = "Brevoortia tyrannus"
binomial_authority = (Latrobe, 1802)

The Atlantic menhaden ("Brevoortia tyrannus") is a silvery, highly compressed fish in the herring family, Clupeidae. [ITIS|ID=161732|taxon=Brevoortia tyrannus|year=2006|date=30 January] [FishBase_species|genus=Brevoortia|species=tyrannus|year=2005|month=10] A filter feeder, it lives on plankton caught in midwater. Adult fish can filter up to four gallons of water a minute; and they play an important role in clarifying ocean water. They are also a natural check to the deadly red tide.cite web | author = H. Bruce Franklin | url = http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2006/03/net_losses.html | title = Net Losses|publisher = Mother Jones | month = March | year = 2006 | accessmonthday = 21 February | accessyear = 2006 Extensive article on the role of menhaden in the ecosystem and possible results of overfishing.]

Menhaden historically occurred in large numbers in the North Atlantic, ranging from Nova Scotia, Canada to central Florida, USA, although their presence in northern waters has diminished in the 20th Century. They swim in large schools, some reportedly up to convert|40|mi|km long. As a result of their abundance they are important prey for a wide range of predators including bluefish, striped bass cod, haddock, halibut, mackerel, swordfish, and tuna.

The menhaden is also called pogy, mossbunker, bug fish, alewife, shad, greasetail, bunker, bunker fish and fat back.

Commercial fishing

The Atlantic menhaden is popular for use as live or dead bait. The fish is notorious for its rapid deterioration when caught, as well as its bony and oily makeup. As a result, they are primarily used for the production of fish meal, oil and fertilizer. It was likely the fish that Squanto taught the Pilgrims to bury alongside freshly planted seeds as fertiliser. It went on to be used for this purpose on a large scale on farmland on the Atlantic coast, though this process was stopped after it was realized that the oily fish parched the soil.cite book|author = George Brown Goode | year = 1887 | title = The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States. Section V. History and Methods of the Fisheries | publisher = U.S. Government Printing Office | location = Washington, D.C.]

In recent years their population is considered to be sustainable coastwide, though a possibility for a localized depletion exists in the Chesapeake Bay due to a concentrated harvest. [ASMFC 2005] Omega Protein, a Houston, Texas-based company, has a virtual monopoly on the menhaden reduction industry in the United States.fact|date=April 2008 The company uses a process known as purse-seining to corral and remove from the water entire schools of menhaden, often numbering in the hundreds of thousands.fact|date=April 2008 Purse seining has been outlawed by every Atlantic coast state except Virginia and North Carolina. Tremendous algal blooms that starve the bay of sunlight and oxygen have been attributed to a diminished menhaden population due to the menhaden's important role as a filter feeder of algae and other phytoplankton. Significant malnutrition and disease in one of its primary predators, the striped bass, is also widespread in the Chesapeake.

References