Evaluation of Various Biological Reference Points for Management of Atlantic Menhaden

Atlantic menhaden is the second largest fishery by volume in the United States.

In the past the fishery was regulated through a set of management triggers designed to describe the status of the population and the fishery. Since the adoption of Amendment 1 to FMP in 2004, a standard control rule with targets and limits for the fishing mortality and spawning biomass was used for fishery management.  Although regular stock assessments indicated that the population was not overfished, menhaden recruitment remained at low level since early 1990s and population abundance is currently at historic low.  I review the performance of various reference points both in single species (Frep, F%MSP, Fmsy) and multispecies (Biomass or numbers based ratio of prey and predator, minimum biomass allocation for predators) context. Historical estimates of population parameters and simulated population model are used for reference points evaluation. Various management strategies based on fishing mortality, catch and predator prey target ratio are also evaluated.