Marine life surges off Long Island after tiny fish receives protection

Whales, dolphins, tuna, sharks, and striped bass are surging in abundance off the shores of Long Island ten years after a decision by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to reduce menhaden catch rates.

Photo by Andre Estevez

Considered “the most important fish in the sea” by advocates, menhaden are small, oily fish that are a favorite food of larger fish and marine mammals. Their important role in the diet of these larger animals makes them a keystone species.

Menhaden travel in huge dark schools up and down the eastern seaboard filtering ocean water.

Due to growing demand for menhaden, which is used in fish oil supplements, dog food, fertilizer, and for lobster bait, it was overfished over the past half century and its numbers plummeted 90 percent. By the early aughts, a consortium of advocacy groups, including fishermen and conservationists, were working to get aggressive catch limits in place.

In 2012, the fisheries commission placed catch limits on menhaden for the first time. In 2022, it voted to use ecological reference points like striped bass numbers to decide catch limits.

Now, photographers using drones are documenting the return of humpback whales, dolphins, sharks, rays and blue fin tuna, animals that were rarely spotted off the shores of Long Island a decade ago.

“It’s very rare that you have a conservation gain that is so visible in such a short time,” John Gans, a northeast field representative for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, told The New York Times. “And it’s 100 percent attributed to the 2012 catch limits put in place on menhaden.”

Collaborators:

• Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership

• Menhaden Defenders

• Pew Environment Group

• The Nature Conservancy

• Massachusetts Commercial Striped Bass Association