The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Menhaden Board voted Tuesday to open the door to more restrictions on the controversial menhaden fishery in the Chesapeake Bay.
Board members voted to establish a workgroup that will consider and evaluate options “for further precautionary management,” including limiting large-scale menhaden fishing to certain areas or during certain times.
The measure is meant to protect birds and fish that rely on nutrient-dense menhaden as a key food source, such as ospreys and striped bass.
“While we don't lay all this at the feet of the large purse seine fisheries, we believe it is common sense to alleviate stress where we can control it,” said Lynn Fegley, a board member from Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources who spearheaded the motion that passed.
The Atlantic States commission helps manage the fishery along the entire East Coast, including 15 states from Florida to Maine.
But the Chesapeake Bay specifically has been at the center of an ongoing battle over menhaden. Virginia is the only East Coast state that still allows menhaden reduction fishing in state waters.
Omega Protein is the last company standing in the local industry. It harvests hundreds of millions of menhaden each year — about a third of them from the bay — and processes them into fishmeal and fish oil at a plant in Reedville.
Environmentalists and sportfishers worry menhaden are disappearing due to overfishing, affecting the rest of the food chain. Advocates want the industry to be banned from the bay completely or at least more heavily restricted.
Omega, meanwhile, has said there’s no evidence backing up these concerns, pointing to the most recent federal surveys finding the East Coast menhaden population appears healthy.
Critics argue that data doesn’t address what’s happening in the bay specifically. Everyone agrees more data is needed to truly understand the ecosystem’s dynamics.
Advocates pushed for a bill at Virginia’s General Assembly that would have funded an in-depth study of the issue, but lawmakers delayed it for at least a year.
A coalition of recreational anglers and environmental nonprofits filed a petition to Virginia’s own regulatory body to impose tighter rules on the industry earlier this year – but that was rejected, too.
Chris Dollar, a recreational fishing captain and chairman of the Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association's fishery conservation committee, said this week’s move is “another positive step forward.”
“But it also underscores how important it is to have more science in the Chesapeake about menhaden abundance,” he said. “We need that study.”
Some board members thought taking action on the fishery would be “jumping the gun” without more evidence that menhaden are behind other species’ declines.
Others, such as board member Dennis Abbott from New Hampshire, said action is overdue.
“The people in Virginia and Maryland have been crying to us for years for us to do something for the menhaden in the bay,” Abbott said. “And I think in whole, we've sat back and done very little. I think that the time has come to do something.”
