Stocks of a small, herring-like fish that provides omega-3 essential fatty acids for supplements taken by millions of people could be endangered because of the Western world’s obsession with health foods, conservationists warn.
At risk is the future of the menhaden fish, which breeds in Chesapeake Bay and lives along the United States’s eastern seaboard. It is claimed that vast shoals at a time are being vacuumed up, threatening the ecosystem.
The issue has set Greenpeace against the American billionaire and new owner of Manchester United football club, Malcolm Glazer. His family owns and runs Omega Protein Corporation, which fishes the bay. Glazer’s son Avram is chairperson of Omega and a director of Manchester United.
Last Saturday, Greenpeace staged a protest outside one of Omega’s plants in Chesapeake Bay demanding a moratorium for the entire fishery, and an end to the company taking menhaden out of the bay — claiming its 66 vessels and 30 spotter planes are threatening the entire stock. The menhaden is valued for other reasons, primarily because it filters sea water for its food, cleaning up the pollution in the creeks and inshore bay areas.
At a meeting at Northern Neck, support for Omega came from James M Long, president of the county chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People.
”Omega has been good to our people, our schools and our economy. An industry with good people, good pay and good benefits is something every place needs,” he said of the Reedville plant that employs about 250 people in the May to December fishing season and makes it the third-largest fishing port in the US.
Nancy Hwa of Greenpeace said, ”We’d like to see sustainable, small-scale fisheries. At the rate Omega is going, these jobs won’t be there in a couple of generations.” — Â