Menhaden Poem by gershon hepner

Unfortunately, the menhaden
will soon be more extinct that Latin,
since they are fast-depleting assets
which, overfished for fatty acids
with which we our lipstick and our paint
and salmon feed without constraint,
no longer thrive, and can’t be found
where they once were. Long Island Sound
is muddy now, like Chesapeake,
the Bay where fishers used to seek
these fish that filter water and
make sure it isn’t full of sand
and algae that cause it to be
as fresh as they every sea
should be. Their loss should sadden
our hearts more than the loss of Latin.
Few people now care for the Aenid,
and for the sea, when algae green it,
will care still less, and once we’re forced
to give up fish for liverwurst,
until all livers are depleted,
we’ll realize that we’ve been cheated
by being led to think that there
will always be some food somewhere
to eat. Perhaps there won’t be any.
Not long ago there were so many
menhaden, but we’ll have to fast
once we found out we’ve killed the last.

Inspired by an article on the disappearance of the menhaden by Paul Greenberg, the author of “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food” (“A Fish Oil Story, ” NYT, December 1,2009) :
If you are someone who catches and eats a lot of fish, as I am, you get adept at answering questions about which fish are safe, which are sustainable and which should be avoided altogether. But when this fish oil question arrived in my inbox recently, I was stumped. I knew that concerns about overfishing had prompted many consumers to choose supplements as a guilt-free way of getting their omega-3 fatty acids, which studies show lower triglycerides and the risk of heart attack. But I had never looked into the fish behind the oil and whether it was fit, morally or environmentally speaking, to be consumed. The deal with fish oil, I found out, is that a considerable portion of it comes from a creature upon which the entire Atlantic coastal ecosystem relies, a big-headed, smelly, foot-long member of the herring family called menhaden, which a recent book identifies in its title as “The Most Important Fish in the Sea.” The book’s author, H. Bruce Franklin, compares menhaden to the passenger pigeon and related to me recently how his research uncovered that populations were once so large that “the vanguard of the fish’s annual migration would reach Cape Cod while the rearguard was still in Maine.” Menhaden filter-feed nearly exclusively on algae, the most abundant forage in the world, and are prolifically good at converting that algae into omega-3 fatty acids and other important proteins and oils. They also form the basis of the Atlantic Coast’s marine food chain. Nearly every fish a fish eater likes to eat eats menhaden. Bluefin tuna, striped bass, redfish and bluefish are just a few of the diners at the menhaden buffet. All of these fish are high in omega-3 fatty acids but are unable themselves to synthesize them. The omega-3s they have come from menhaden. But menhaden are entering the final losing phases of a century-and-a-half fight for survival that began when humans started turning huge schools into fertilizer and lamp oil. Once petroleum-based oils replaced menhaden oil in lamps, trillions of menhaden were ground into feed for hogs, chickens and pets. Today, hundreds of billions of pounds of them are converted into lipstick, salmon feed, paint, “buttery spread, ” salad dressing and, yes, some of those omega-3 supplements you have been forcing on your children. All of these products can be made with more environmentally benign substitutes, but menhaden are still used in great (though declining) numbers because they can be caught and processed cheaply.


12/16/09