New data sheds light on Louisiana's controversial pogy boats. Will it resolve the debate?

Two boats slide off the back of their mothership and into the Gulf’s green waters. Then the real work begins.

With waves rocking them, the boats begin to separate, unspooling a net bigger than five football fields as they motor in opposite directions to form a circle. Hundreds of pelicans hover, hoping for a free meal.

When the net is set, yellow floats along its perimeter bobbing on the surface, the men on the boats close it off and haul it back, bringing small, silvery fish with it.

“You’ve got a little fish in the net,” says Shane Treadaway, who oversees the operations, as he watches from a separate boat nearby, speaking of what was primarily intended as a demonstration for visiting journalists rather than an actual attempt to catch menhaden .

Later, the menhaden, or pogies, will