Recreational fishing and environmental advocates are pushing — yet again — for Virginia to take action against industrial menhaden fishing in the Chesapeake Bay.
Proposed legislation at the General Assembly would halt the harvest in the bay until new research shows it is not harming the ecosystem.
Environmentalists and anglers have increasingly raised concerns in recent years about what they say is a decline in the menhaden population and in the species that feed on it, such as ospreys and striped bass.
The debate over managing the 150-year-old fishery centers around what the science shows.
Virginia lawmakers have repeatedly punted a study that would help settle the debate, including tabling a proposal this month for a menhaden research fund. Advocates say they don’t want to wait any longer.
“The story is always the same. ‘We don't have the science to prove anything.’ But then you go try to get the science, and it’s ‘Oh, we're not going to do that either,’” Alan Wingfield, president of the Richmond Audubon Society, said on a call with reporters Friday.
“So it feels like a giant game of Lucy and the football. We’re trying to reverse the conversation.”
Ocean Harvesters, which supplies Omega Protein, collects menhaden with large walls of netting called purse seines. Omega then processes, or “reduces,” them into fishmeal and fish oil at a plant in Reedville.
Virginia is the last East Coast state that permits menhaden reduction fishing. Others allow fishermen to catch menhaden as bait.
Ocean Harvesters said in a statement this week that the proposed ban “runs counter to the best available fisheries science” conducted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, or ASMFC, which regulates the fishery coastwide.
The ban would set “an unworkable standard by requiring the commonwealth to certify the fishery causes no negative impacts before the ban can expire," effectively demanding that officials prove a negative, the company stated. “That invites a permanent closure by default, regardless of what the full body of evidence shows.”
It would threaten hundreds of jobs in Reedville, Ocean Harvesters said.
The legislation would not prevent the company from fishing in the ocean, where it typically gets about two-thirds of its harvest.
A separate bill targets how the menhaden fishery can operate in the bay, distributing the quota more evenly throughout the harvest season.
Will Poston, forage campaign manager with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said that would complement a potential ban.
“We see the quota period as being a longer-term protection to be in place under the assumption science is going to develop sustainable fishing levels in the Chesapeake Bay,” Poston said.
The goal is to “ensure that industrial fishing is not concentrating too heavily at certain times of the year,” such as summertime when ospreys nourish their young.
The General Assembly is not the only body considering changes.
In October, the ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Board voted to reduce this year’s coastwide catch limit by 20%. Board members agreed to revisit the topic this fall, with the potential for more cuts or other regulatory changes.
Status of the science
Menhaden are particularly difficult — and expensive — to study, because they’re hard to catch with traditional survey gear and they migrate out of the Chesapeake Bay seasonally.
In 2023, William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science outlined a study proposal and estimated it would cost at least $3 million. The General Assembly has declined to fund it each year since.
But there is some movement. President Donald Trump recently signed an appropriations bill that includes $2.5 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to study menhaden in the bay, though that won’t fully cover VIMS’ proposal.
Separately, last fall, officials announced a research project focused on the bay harvest cap, or the total amount of menhaden Ocean Harvesters can pull from the bay. It’s currently set at 51,000 metric tons, or about 112 million pounds.
VIMS is part of the team developing a “research roadmap” to analyze gaps in science and better manage the fishery.
The project comes from the National Science Foundation’s Science Center for Marine Fisheries, which is funded by industry members, including Omega Protein and Ocean Harvesters.
Longtime menhaden researcher Rob Latour, a professor at VIMS and the Batten School, said the project doesn’t preclude a broader study, but will dive deeper into the bay cap.
The limit, first established in 2006, is based on the industry's past performance. Ideally, that would be based on scientific research on the population, but there’s none to draw from, Latour said.
The roadmap still won’t collect that data. Meanwhile, advocates such as Mike Waine, Atlantic fisheries policy director with the American Sportfishing Association, said there’s no time to wait.
“We shouldn't be gambling with the bay’s forage base.”
