Menhaden are one of the most regulated fish in the ocean. They have been harvested from the coastal waters for hundreds of years. Has anyone stopped to think about what the implications of no fishing would be on an ecosystem that has supported the harvest of millions of fish annually? We currently see localized fish KILLS in areas that are no longer harvesting the menhaden. The fish are literally killing themselves because there are too many. Menhaden have been deemed by several scientific studies to be a healthy population. Once the industry is gone, there will be no one to call when your beaches are full of dead fish, and there will be dead fish. There will be no one to come and clean up the mess. The population of menhaden is not overfished, this has been proven time and time again. This is just another grab to point the finger at someone else for the overfishing of sport fish which has been proven to be taking place. There are already caps and quotas in place that are very conservative models and there are ecological reference points which no other fishery follows. This species of fish also move up and down the coastal waters. There is no "resident population" of menhaden in the bay. So how do you determine localized depletion on a species that doesn't have a residence?