A REVIEW OF LITERATURE ON MENHADEN 



WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE GULF OF MEXICO 



MENHADEN, Brevoortla Patronus GOODE 



by 



Gordon Gunter and J. Y. Christmas 



INTRODUCTION 



On the Atlantic coast of the United 

 States, nnenhaden have been utilized for 

 food and for fertilizer since the days 

 of the early colonists (Goode, 1879)- 

 Processing the fish for oil, which in the 

 beginning consisted nnerely of press- 

 ing the decomposing raw fish, was 

 started in Rhode Island in 1811 (Goode, 

 1884). In the 1870's the industry was 

 brought to North Carolina by northern 

 soldiers who had noted the abundance 

 of menhaden in southern waters during 

 the Civil War (Ellison, 1951). After 

 some initial failures the menhaden 

 industry became well established in 

 the South Atlantic States in the 1880's. 



Despite the long history of the 

 menhaden fishery in the Atlantic and 

 its rapid expansion in the Gulf of 

 Mexico, extensive studies of the 

 biology of these important commercial 

 fishes have not been undertaken until 

 recently. The only published bibliogra- 

 phy on biology of the American Men- 

 haden (Reintjes, Christmas, and 

 Collins, I960) includes most of the 

 literature with very brief annotations 

 and a subject index. This review of the 

 literature on the biology of menhaden 

 brings together information from 

 somewhat scattered sources. Gulf 

 commercial production is discussed 

 first, followed by a summary of the 

 taxonomy, distribution and relation- 



Note.--Dr. Gordon Gunter, Director, and J. Y, 

 Christmas. Fishery Biologist, Gulf Coast Research Lab- 

 oratory, Ocean Springs, Mississippi. 



ships of the species of the genus 

 Brevoortia. The Atlantic menhaden, 

 Brevoortia tyrannus (Latrobe), is dis- 

 cussed under topic headings. The chief 

 papers are cited, but no attenipt was 

 made to cover completely the volu- 

 minous and sometimes repetitious 

 literature. In the section on the Gulf 

 menhaden almost every piece of lit- 

 erature pertaining to the biology of 

 this species has been cited. Topical 

 arrangement of the material parallels 

 that of the Atlantic menhaden. 



GULF MENHADEN FISHERY 

 STATISTICS 



The development of a menhaden 

 fishery in the Gulf States moved from 

 east to west. There was considerable 

 production of menhaden on the Florida 

 east coast as early as 1923 but con- 

 tinuous production did not start in the 

 Gulf States until 1937 (Power, 1958). 

 The production statistics shown in 

 table 1 were taken from various U. S. 

 Fish and Wildlife Service reports. 

 There are some State statistical re- 

 ports, but these are not connparable 

 from State to State nor fronn year to 

 year. They would be of little value 

 except for the years 1946-47 in the 

 developmental period of the Gulf men- 

 haden fishery. 



Catch records given by Anderson 

 and Peterson (1953) show that men- 

 haden were caught off the west Florida 



