menhaden and other pelagic fish that live 

 near the water surface, the NC State 

 scientists hope to model distribution and 

 abundance of pelagic fish that travel between 

 estuaries and the open sea. 



"This would provide a way to estimate 

 the number of fish in the estuary " says 

 Rand. "There is a fisheries management plan 

 for menhaden. Now there is no direct way to 

 measure the density of pelagic fish in the 

 Neuse." 



The National Marine Fisheries 

 Service's stock assessment of Atlantic 

 menhaden, categorized by regions, is 

 predominantly for fish one year and older. 



Street, DMF chief of habitat protection and 

 chairman of the Atlantic Menhaden Advisory 

 Committee for the Atlantic States Marine 

 Fisheries Commission. "We don't know the 

 environmental reason for the decline, but it is 

 not caused by fishing." 



By tracking the menhaden's behavior 

 and distribution in the river. Sea Grant 

 scientists hope to unlock some mysteries 

 about the impact of nutrient loading on 

 pelagic fish in estuaries. 



"These fish may be happily feeding on 

 plankton in well-oxygenated surface waters 

 until a wind event like an afternoon blow or 

 even a hurricane stirs the water column and 



Menhaden important to 

 ecological community 



Menhaden, which feed on phytoplankton 

 and other minute organic matter, serve as an 

 important link in estuarine food webs by 

 converting plant life to fish biomass. 



"In some well-studied Gulf of Mexico 

 estuaries, it has been estimated that up to 25 

 percent of primary production in salt marsh 

 communities are exported every year through 

 a mass exodus of fish," says Rand. 



In the fall and winter, menhaden migrate 

 in droves through North Carolina's barrier 

 island inlets to spawning sites along the 

 continental shelf. 



Pete Rand, right watches as research assistants examine 

 samples of menhaden from a trawl catch. 



A Sea Grant researcher looks at the location of menhaden 

 in the water column. 



From 1985 to 1996, North Carolina had the 

 highest median catch of menhaden on the 

 East Coast, according to a 1 999 National 

 Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration 

 Technical Report. 



The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries 

 (DMF) data includes only landings for 

 menhaden in the Neuse. In 1999, 1 1,625 

 pounds of menhaden were caught in the 

 Neuse, compared to 29,951 pounds in 1997. 



"Reproductive success of menhaden 

 has dropped since the late 1980s," says Mike 



upwells anoxic water to the surface," says 

 Rand. "That could lead to trouble." 



These events can have lethal or 

 sublethal effects on the fish. 



"While the fish kills tend to grab the 

 headlines, the thousands of fish reported dead 

 at the scene of a fish kill is small potatoes in 

 the context of the entire fish population," 

 says Rand. "It is my feeling that the sublethal 

 effects of exposure of fish to hypoxic water 

 may be far more important in the context of 

 the overall fish population." 



During migration, Atlantic menhaden are 

 caught by ocean-going purse-seine vessels, 

 then processed for fish meal, oil and bait. 



"From early in the 20th century until 

 1995, menhaden was the highest volume 

 fishery in North Carolina" says Street. "Now 

 it ranks second to blue crabs. We used to have 

 as many as 150 vessels fishing for menhaden 

 in the late 1950s and 1960s along the Atlantic 

 coast. Now we have only about a dozen boats 

 that fish for menhaden, 10 from Virginia and 

 Continued 



COASTWATCH 13 



