Pogy Boat Buffer - Next Steps

...Continued from above

For perspective, the total shrimp harvest in Louisiana is 60 million lbs. The menhaden reduction industry removes over 1 billion lbs of menhaden every year. That is billion with a B. The total amount of all recreationally harvested fish in Louisiana annually, from catfish to trout to flounder to croaker to tuna is 35 million lbs. To put it another way there are 300,000 satwater fishing license holders in Louisiana and they only harvest 3 to 4% of what the menhaden industry harvests every year. Menhaden is a public resource, it belongs to all of us and the use of this resource is completely out of balance. The industry claims that they are only taking a small amount of the fish, but this is a lie. Their average harvest for the last 10 years in Louisiana has been 1.02 billion lbs annually. The total gulf-wide biomass of menhaden has been just over 5 billion lbs, as reported by the GSMFC who is responsible for assessments of several gulf species. The industry harvests on average 20% of the TOTAL gulf biomass every year and this occurs in concentrated fashion in Louisiana. The fact is that any school of menhaden large enough to be seen by a spotter plane is targeted and harvested. They are incentivized to harvest as many fish as possible. More menhaden = more money. They will catch every accessible school of menhaden in an area and move on to the next. The menhaden hug the coast and this is why the buffer is important. The industry catches every single fish that they CAN catch. If the buffer is reduced, they will catch more menhaden.

The menhaden industry has not existed forever in its current form. Historically small amounts of menhaden were caught as bait or for other purposes, without spotter planes and without huge factory ships. The first documented harvest of menhaden by the reduction industry in Louisiana was in 1948 and they only harvested 88 million lbs. That is 7% of what was harvested last year. With spotter planes and refrigerated holds on the boats being implemented the harvest increased dramatically by the 1970s. All of the big reduction plants were built in the late 1960s. This coincides with the decline of our fishery.

The modern reduction industry consists of 2 companies with 3 plants (2 in Louisiana and one in Mississippi that fishes in Louisiana): Omega, which is owned by Canadian company Cooke Aquaculture and Daybrook, which is owned by South African aquaculture company Oceana. None of the fish they catch are used for local crawfish or crabbing bait. 100% of it is reduced to fish meal and menhaden oil. Most of that is used to feed shrimp and fish farms in other countries. These companies are vertically integrated and the business model is very simple - 1) harvest the most nutritious and vast FREE protein source in the world: marine forage like menhaden and sardines 2) use that protein to feed fish and shrimp and livestock farms to sell more valuable products globally. These companies remove the forage from our ecosystem to feed fish and shrimp farms in other countries whose products are then sold back into our market at a cheaper price than our local shrimpers and fisherman can afford to exist. Shrimping effort in Lousiana is at a historic low due to prices being bottomed out by imported farmed shrimp, for example.

Key politicians, like Jeff Landry, are bought and paid for by these global giant aquaculture companies. In the last election cycle that elected Landry to governor, these companies publicly made over $750,000 in donations. Privately there is probably even more "lobbying" going on, but at the end of the day the governor is in bed with these people that are pillaging our coast. They harvest an unlimited amount of menhaden and do not pay a cent to the people of Louisiana for it. They employ a few hundred people between 2 operations in our state, one in Abbeville and one in Empire. Other than the employment they offer very little of value in return for the billion+ lbs that they take in menhaden.

The most obvious impact from the menhaden harvest is tarpon. The tarpon were first to go missing after the reduction industry began operating and should be looked at as a major warning. Stable isotope tissue studies show that Atlantic Tarpon only eat menhaden (clupeids) when in the northern gulf for their summer feed and they require large schools. In the late 60s when the pogy harvest ramped up the tarpon started to decline. Before this, every pass in LA used to have a giant raft-like school of menhaden stretching sometimes for 10 miles all summer long. There used to be large numbers of tarpon feeding on the huge menhaden schools all summer, close to shore. In many areas like Cameron, Cypremort Point, Cocodrie and Lake Ponchartrain almost no one has seen a tarpon for over 4 decades. They are exceedingly rare to non existent now compared to the 1960s and earlier when they were common. TBy the 70s and 80s the tarpon were becoming scarce state wide and today Grand Isle tarpon anglers are moving their boats from Lousiana to Texas and Mississippi because they have more tarpon. In contrast, Texas pogy harvest dropped by 98% to under 1 million lbs after 2009 regulations went into effect banning the boats from working within a mile of any pass or jetty and in the following decade tarpon abundance in Texas (as measured by Texas parks and wildlife) doubled over the prior 3 decades. Anecdotally, people here who used to fish tarpon in Louisiana in the 50s and 60s said “they disappeared when the pogy boats showed up”. It’s too much evidence to ignore. You can have either a thriving tarpon fishery or unlimited nearshore pogy harvest, but not both. Tarpon can migrate 60 miles a day so they are the first species to tell you if there is a problem with not enough food - they simply leave and head to another state where the pogy schools exist unencumbered.

Up and down the east coast the menhaden harvest has been banned, except in the Chesapeake Bay region. Where the menhaden have recovered there is now a resurgence in their ecosystem from numbers of striped bass that people have never seen before to humpback whales returning to New York harbor. Contrast this to what is happening in the Chesapeake where osprey populations are plummeting and the striped bass fishery has collapsed. Commercial bait fishermen in the northern Chesapeake reported being able to catch zero (0) lbs of menhaden last year because the reduction industry harvested almost every single school in the bay before the fish could make it to Maryland.

It is possible to have some menhaden harvest for commercial use, but we need to prioritize our own ecosystem over the profits of two international companies. We earned the name Sportsman's Paradise because of how vibrant and productive our ecosystem was before the pogy boats came. Now we are at risk to losing that title to other states because they are doing more to conserve and protect the menhaden that feed everything else. Florida and Alabama banned purse seines completely. Mississippi and Texas have a 1 mile buffer that makes it almost impossible for the industry to fish there. Louisiana's coast is now the last state being strip mined to benefit very few people. It is the most short-sighted use of arguably our most precious public resource.

Send the ICE Agents down to Empire if you want to halt the pogy fishery

The problem is is that you’re in the state of LA. The fact that AL and MS have addressed this issue before we have really says something about those in power here.

Morally and ethically corrupt greedy politicians that have little interest in the public. A abuse of power is an understatement for all the corruption that occurs here. The only way they’ll care is if their pockets get lined. They don’t put the citizens first. They never have and they never will.

I contacted all of the representatives in this area as well as my state senator on this and not a one of them replied. Sad.

Can you give us some bona fide sources for what you say? And if it isn’t political but biological based and is is fair and balanced we will be happy to educate ourselves.

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Can you give us some bona fide sources for what you say? And if it isn’t political but biological based and is is fair and balanced we will be happy to educate ourselves.

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Tell me what fact I cited that you'd like to know the source. I will be be happy to review with you or provide a source.

My research started as a dive into the once-thriving tarpon fishery here and following the trail it ultimately led to the menhaden industry. What I found bothers me so much I feel it is highly important to bring this information to others who care about the coastal resources in our state still being there for our kids and grandkids one day.

The pogie boat viewpoint in the video cited several facts that were false and unfortunately the interviewer didn't know enough about the issue to check them on it. This is standard operating procedure for the industry - to lie about things and present their impact on our state in a false way.

He starts by saying that "foreign ownership isnt a factor" in their industry pointing out that the fishing companies are American owned. Legally in the USA a foreign owned fishing vessel is not allowed to fish so the foreign parent companies set up as owned in the USA to own and operate the boats themselves. The factories where 100% of the product is processed is owned by the foreign parent companies (Omega = Cooke Aquaculture and Daybrook = Oceana). Its shows how slimy they are to present their ownership this way. This guy himself works for Omega which is a 100% foreign owned company. Foreign entities are in fact taking the menhaden, despite putting American flags on the boats.

His explanation of what happened during the tarpon fishermen conflict, where they caught tarpon in the net, was false. The tarpon fishermen have video of the pogy boats steaming close to the recreational fisherman right in the middle of where they were fishing. He talks about the pogy boats trying to avoid conflict but in this case they tarpon fishermen were already there and the pogy boats pushed right into them. I know a few of the tarpon guys who were out there personally and they are very credible. They said that they radioed the pogy boats to avoid the area because there were 6 tarpon boats working a school. The warning was ignored and the pogy boats ended up killing at least one tarpon and there was video of the tarpon caught in their nets, many of you have seen this video Im sure.

"we've been harvesting in the gulf for probably 80 or 90 years" is a false statement and misrepresents the truth. The Louisiana pogy plants were built in the late 1960s. The first initial landings of menhaden in Louisiana were in 1948. The amount that was harvested in the 1950s and 1960s was tiny, compared to today. Since the 1980s until today the industry dramatically ramped up harvest and thats when the damage occurred. They paint a picture where the way they harvest today is the same they've harvested for 100 years. Complete garbage.

He briefly mentions the GSMFC assessment to say that the amount they harvest "is sustainable" and begins talking about making sure there is enough menhaden in the water to feed key predators. The assessment done by GSMFC only looks at the menhaden population and doesnt look at the ecosystem and predator indicators at all, like they do in the Atlantic. The industry here has fought that tooth and nail because they know that as soon as the menhaden can be managed based on the needs of predators, they will have to dramatically cut their harvest. Currently they harvest an unlimited amount and they are able to take 20% of the total gulf biomass on average. This doesnt collapse the menhaden population, they end up catching what is replaced almost every year. This is called fishing to maximum sustainable yield. It is an intelligent way to manage a predator stock, but not a forage stock because MSY ignores the what the menhaden stock means to other species. To even mention that they care about predator species is such a bad faith thing to say. Super sleezy. As long as they are able to catch the same amount every year, in general, the stock is not considered "overfished" from an MSY perspective. And this is the vernacular they use. "sustainable". But it doesnt mean that they arent hurting predator populations. It isnt sustainable for the fish that depend on the menhaden. Over 1 billion lbs of pogy are removed annually. Imagine how many fish that would have fed.

He talks about the buffer being reduced in some areas because they dont see a lot of recreational anglers there. This is not why there is a buffer. The buffer is to protect nearshore predators like reds, trout, and tarpon, not to allow the pogy boats to fish and not have to compete with recreational anglers.

"I've always said that a man's livelihood should be treated at least as equal or more important than another man's hobby." This is the most offensive thing he said. There are 300,000 recreational saltwater fishing licenses in Louisiana. Menhaden are a public resource and no one has any more right to them than the other. The waters are a public resource. No one has any more right to be there than the next guy. They didnt buy the rights to an area, they didnt purchase the rights to the menhaden. Just a disgusting attitude and shows behind the curtain of who these people really area. They think they should be allowed to do whatever they want with the resource because they use it to pay their bills. The rest of us who work another job in order to enjoy the resources can go pound sand. Such a nasty attitude by these people.

"This degree of harvest isnt unusual" is totally false. There was no harvest prior to 1948 and the harvest from 1948 to 1970 was less than half of what it is today. Only in the last 40 years have they been obliterating the forage base. The USUAL harvest of menhaden is zero. It's banned in most states.

"We earned the moniker Sportsman's Paradise when there were triple the number of pogy plants and double the vessel" is completely false. The moniker Sportsman's Paradise started closer to 1900 when Theodore Roosevelt visited Louisiana and helped publicize the abundance of fish and wildlife here. It was already well in the public vernacular before the first documented industrial harvest of pogy in 1948. It was on license plates before the pogy plants were built. Once again shows how sleezy these guys are. Just total lies. The ecosystem was far more vibrant and productive before the pogy boats arrived here and thats when we earned the name Sportsman's Paradise.

"Its better if there's not as much tension." "We need to dial down the rhetoric and temperature." This is him just saying - "Let us continue to rape and pillage the most important coastal resource in peace, we are making good money with it"

Usually it’s a cross section of commercial interests; oyster mafia, pogy mafia, shrimp mafia.
Commission is also typically a stacked deck with commercial interest exceeding rec.
Self preservation***