An effort to place moderate new regulation on the controversial menhaden harvest in the Chesapeake Bay is inching forward.
The Menhaden Board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted Thursday to study options for spreading the industry’s harvest in the bay more evenly throughout the season.
The goal would be to divide the fishing quota into set periods and prevent bottlenecks “that may be impacting other Bay small-scale fisheries as well as the Bay ecosystem,” according to the approved motion.
The commission helps manage fisheries along the East Coast, including 15 states from Florida to Maine. Virginia’s representatives voted against the measure.
The latest action builds off of a workgroup established by the board that spent the past year evaluating options for “precautionary management” of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay.
Ocean Harvesters, which operates a fishing fleet to supply Omega Protein, harvests up to 51,000 metric tons of menhaden in the bay each year using large walls of netting called purse seines. Omega processes, or “reduces,” them into fishmeal and fish oil at a plant in Reedville.
Virginia is the last East Coast state that allows this type of menhaden fishing in state waters. Others, such as Maryland, allow fishermen to use stationary traps called pound nets to catch menhaden for use as bait.
Environmentalists and sportfishers believe purse seines are removing too many menhaden, affecting species that rely on them, such as striped bass and osprey. They want the reduction industry to be banned from the bay or more heavily restricted.
Omega Protein maintains there’s no scientific evidence backing up the claims.
Ahead of this week’s meeting, Peter Himchak, a scientific advisor with Omega, wrote in a letter to the board that additional restrictions would threaten hundreds of jobs in Reedville.
“Rather than attempt to investigate the issue, the (workgroup) charged forward with draconian management recommendations,” Himchak wrote, stating that the fishery is operating at its lowest sustained levels in decades. “Precaution is already the policy.”
The fisheries commission’s current assessment is that Atlantic menhaden are not overfished.
Critics argue that coastwide assessments could be masking declines in the Chesapeake Bay. Advocates have unsuccessfully pushed Virginia lawmakers in recent years to fund a study that would determine the status of the menhaden population in the bay.
Board member Lynn Fegley, fishing services director with Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources, initiated this week’s proposal.
She said commercial fishermen in her state are reporting dramatic drops in menhaden during the peak summer season.
“For us, this becomes a tremendous red flag. We understand very well that there was a time period where there was a lot greater menhaden harvest in the bay, and everybody was catching menhaden, and osprey were covered,” she said. “But things have significantly changed in the bay. What I hear from my commercial fishermen is something is seriously wrong.”
Russell Dize, a board member from Maryland and a longtime Chesapeake Bay waterman, said the group needs to determine the cause of the changes as soon as possible.
“Houston, we have a problem. There’s a reason why the menhaden aren’t coming in the bay, and we need to find out,” Size said. “It’s our problem. We need to fix it.”
Advocates of more stringent measures on the menhaden industry are turning to President Donald Trump to intervene.
Fishermen from across the Atlantic and Gulf coasts held a press conference last week calling on the president to sign an executive order to protect the species. Trump recently shared a video made by the group on his social media site Truth Social.
