This story was reported and written by our media partner the Virginia Mercury.
The Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission Menhaden Management Board on Tuesday put off a vote on new potential restrictions for Virginia’s only reduction fishery in the Chesapeake Bay.
The board is considering multiple options to implement time period quotas throughout the menhaden fishing season to address the concerns that the fishery is capturing the forage fish before they can move through the Bay up to Maryland.
Ocean Harvesters, who contracts with Omega Protein, is a Reedville-based fleet and menhaden processing facility that has been under intense scrutiny in recent years due to declining populations of other species like striped bass and osprey.
Researchers have used those species as proxies for the menhaden population, as the forage fish are a major part of their diets. Last fall, the menhaden board voted to reduce the entire East Coast’s catch limit by 20%, but maintained the annual 51,000 metric tons total that fishers are allowed to catch inside the Bay.
In recent years, pound net fishermen and small-scale fisheries in Maryland, Virginia, and the Potomac River have reported major declines in their harvests in the late summer, which is normally their peak. The commercial fishers and conservation groups like the Chesapeake Bay Foundation say this proves that the fishery is snapping up menhaden before they migrate up the Bay.
This is a claim the fishery vehemently opposes, and has said there is no scientific proof to support. The fishery points to climate changes and other natural causes for the menhaden’s decline. The menhaden board appears split over both sides of the argument.
At the Tuesday meeting, the board was set to vote on a draft addendum for the Chesapeake Bay fishery that would then go out for a public comment period. The proposed changes include reducing the Bay-specific catch limit and implementing quota periods during the harvest season, so that the reduction fishery could only catch a percentage of their catch cap within certain months.
Board members and stakeholders discussed at length whether an unmet quota from certain periods should be allowed to be rolled into subsequent periods. Without a rollover, a representative for Ocean Harvesters said, that is just additional Bay caps.
“If you don’t utilize that full allocation of, say, period one, you leave three metric tons on the table, and there’s no rollover to the second one to the second period, then that’s 3,000 less that you can catch,” said Ben Landry with Ocean Fleet Services, who lobbies for the fishery.
Previous efforts to conduct scientific studies on the menhaden population in the Bay — specifically to find out the actual menhaden population side, look at the reasons behind why fisheries are seeing smaller harvests, and why other species that depend on them may be going hungry — have stalled.
“In my opinion, you can put all the rules on a reduction fishery you want, but you’re still not going to find the problem until we look further into what’s causing it,” Maryland board member Russell Dize said.
“We don’t have a true fishery independent survey of menhaden abundance in the Chesapeake Bay. So we’re left with these proxies to speak to this availability concern,” Will Poston with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation said in a Tuesday interview. “I kind of attribute it to being stuck on the hamster wheel because decision makers are regularly crippled without having this data.”
The General Assembly has failed to pass legislation and fund studies this year, although Speaker of the House Del. Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, recently signalled he would be interested in a menhaden study. The state budget has not yet been finalized, and it’s unclear if a budget amendment for the menhaden will make the cut.
A workgroup is set to take a closer look at the draft addendum before the August meeting of the menhaden management board. If the board approves the draft to advance, a public comment period will take place September through October, with a final vote slated for November. If passed, the proposed changes would be implemented in the 2027 fishing season.