Menhaden in Trouble in the Bay
While menhaden on the coast are doing fine, menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay are another story. A few days back, the ASMFC Menhaden Management Board Presentation of August 2025 showed graphs revealing the reduced catch in the Bay. As we have long known, Virginia is the only place on the coast that permits large industrial scale removal of menhaden. It is done by Omega Protein, a foreign owned company (Cooke) that operates on the Virginia side of the Bay, utilizing a subsidiary called Ocean Harvester. This commercial effort, likely the largest on the entire coast, is known as the “reduction fishery” since the menhaden are cooked down and reduced for a multitude of products including fish farm food, paint, and women’s cosmetics.
To appreciate the present issue, one must understand that menhaden in the Bay are not just a problem for the Bay. If the Bay stock crashed it would have coastwide implications. Menhaden are an essential forage base for a vast number of predator fish, both inshore and off, as well as marine mammals and birds such as ospreys. In truth, the decline in striped bass reproduction during the last 6 years may be tied to the lack of adequate menhaden forage in the Bay.
For years, efforts have been underway to fund a study of Omega’s impact on the menhaden population in the Bay, but politics stand in the way. Time and again Virginia legislators, driven by Omega lobbying efforts, have blocked such a study, one desperately needed to fully understand why menhaden are in such desperate trouble. Adding complexity there are also water quality concerns in the Bay including nitrogen and phosphorus levels, algae growth, and an invasion of blue catfish.
The Menhaden Management Board plans to make a task force to look into spreading out the menhaden “reduction fishing” caps over the year, hoping this might help the menhaden population in Chesapeake Bay. Given the gravity of the problem, this response fails to take the situation seriously, instead kicking the can down the road. Yes, even more data is coming soon, as the menhaden benchmark stock assessment should appear on October 15th further clarifying matters.
I may be jumping the gun here, but I believe we need a total moratorium on the “reduction fishery” in the Bay. Stop them cold in their tracks, giving menhaden in the Bay a real chance to recover. Granted Omega Protein would launch into furious bout of swearing, shouting, screaming, tears in the hallway, politics, and lawsuits, but the time has come for the Board to stop pussy-footing around and face the damn music head on. Let the chips fall where they may.
