As An Essential Atlantic Fish Declines, Experts Debate Course
Posted by Tsing Mui in Tropical Fish Hobbyist Blog on August 1, 2011 at 8:51 am
The Atlantic menhaden is one of those big things that come in small packages. It’s a pipsqueak of a fish, but it feeds some of the most important fish in the ocean. If it vanished, marine biologists say, the ecosystems of the Atlantic and the Chesapeake Bay could come crashing down.
As the population of this once abundant fish dwindles in dramatic fashion, that theory might be put to a test. Humans don’t eat the oily and bony menhaden, but it’s caught by the metric ton each year, ground into meal and fed to farm fish and livestock.
Photo: Sarah L. Voison / The Washington Post
