Animal
Atlantic menhaden
Brevoortia tyrannus
Also known as: bunker, pogy, fatback
A small, oily, schooling forage fish that is one of the most-consequential species in the Atlantic ecosystem — eaten by virtually every larger fish, marine mammal, and fish-eating bird in the western Atlantic. Massive 'bunker' schools are a routine sight in New York Harbor including waters around Staten Island. Their abundance is the principal reason for the recovery of striped bass, ospreys, bald eagles, and humpback whales in NY waters over the last 15 years.
Scientific
Brevoortia tyrannus is a 6–15 inch schooling clupeid fish of the western Atlantic from Nova Scotia to Florida. Filter-feeders on phytoplankton and zooplankton — they convert primary productivity directly into protein available to larger fish, birds, and mammals. Schools can hold millions of individuals, visible at the surface as “menhaden balls.”
Heavily harvested by industrial fisheries (principal product: [[omega-3-fatty-acids|omega-3]] fish oil and fish meal for aquaculture/pet food); the species’ management is contested and consequential. Recent decade has seen ecosystem-based management gain ground — Maryland and Virginia have implemented harvest limits to ensure sufficient menhaden remain in the water for predators.
On Staten Island
Massive bunker schools are a routine summer-fall sight in waters around the borough — visible from ferry decks, fishing piers, the harbor edges. The recovery of [[striped-bass|striped bass]], ospreys, bald eagles, humpback whales, dolphins, and other predator species in NY waters over the past 15 years is fundamentally a menhaden-availability story.
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Substrate of: [[new-york-harbor-estuary]] · [[osprey]]
- Member of: [[animal]]
- Contained by: [[staten-island]]
Sources
- Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission menhaden stock assessments
- The Nature Conservancy menhaden ecosystem-management research
- NY-NJ Baykeeper harbor-monitoring records
Rooted in life.
What links here, and how
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Scientific
substrate of
- Bluefish menhaden are a principal prey species for bluefish, alongside Atlantic silversides and other forage fish
- Harbor seal harbor seals feed on menhaden and other harbor fish; their return tracks menhaden abundance
- Striped bass menhaden are a principal prey species for striped bass; the bass recovery requires forage-fish abundance
3 inbound links · 4 outbound