Scientist say fish under attack

BILOXI, Miss. (AP) - A Louisiana scientist says the menhaden population in the Gulf of Mexico is seeing its habitat disappear.

Martin O'Connell, director of the Nekton Research Laboratory Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences at the University of New Orleans, says menhaden need a marsh habitat and those locations are diminishing for the small, oily fish.

Menhaden, also called a pogy, is caught commercially in the Mississippi Sound and Gulf of Mexico for processing into fish oil
capsules, fertilizers and fish food.

O'Connell spoke to the Mississippi Commission on Marine Resources in Biloxi this past week about menhaden. He said
disappearing estuaries and global climate change are also threats to the menhaden population.