Alison Fairbrother of the Public Trust Project interviewed a number of ASMFC state commissioners on the controversial ten (yes you read that right 10) year restoration target option that will be included in Amendment 2 to the Menhaden Fishery Management Plan.
Mr. Jack Travelstead, the Virginia commissioner, pointed out that the ten year timeline “was supported by over 1,000 public comments,” what he conveniently left out was the fact that the vast majority of respondents (over 21,000) objected to a ten year option. That’s a 21:1 ratio not supporting the ten year option.
Credit goes to Mr. Travelstead for telling the truth in the interview, but come on Mr. Travelstead, if you are going to tell the story, tell the whole thing, over 21,000 public comments opposed the ten year option.
Click here for the story and interviews.
Save Menhaden 
Maybe Jack Travelstead needs to take a trip to reality and truthfulness .
Menhaden management has to be removed from ASMFC and managed by the NMFS as was done to return the Pacific Sardine stock. Entertaining the concept that ASMFC is up to this task is laughable. NMFS returned the sardine to historic levels in a short period of time. The representatives voting on the stock management don’t even have the math skills to understand the tortured and ridiculous mathematical models that ASMFC uses to justify catch quotas . This situation should be ended this year and the rebuild should begin immediately. Save the Menhaden should petition NMFS to step in immediately. There should be 100 adults in the water for every one adult we are seeing now. Depriving our east coast marine mammals of critical dietary items is also a violation of Marine Mammals Protection Act of 1972. This situation marks the lowest point in the history of fisheries management in this country.
Ten years should not be considered at all. How many “curve balls” can these people throw?
The “over 1000” comments to which Commissioner Travelstead referred were comments submitted by individuals who are directly or indirectly related to the commercial Menhaden fishery. The exact number was over 1100.