Saving Seafood

Washington Examiner Op-ed Gets the Facts Wrong on Menhaden, American Jobs and Fisheries Management

October 1, 2026 — The following was released by the American Small Pelagics Network:

A September 22 Washington Examiner op-ed by Forage Fish Campaign Executive Director Whit Fosburgh continues to perpetuate the campaign’s false narrative. Fosburgh ignores the science governing the fisheries, generations of American working-waterfront history, and the U.S. fishermen and workers whose livelihoods depend on them.

The op-ed portrays Louisiana and Mississippi as Gulf outliers because they permit menhaden purse seine fishing, while not mentioning their history of successful menhaden management. The most recent Gulf menhaden stock assessment found the stock is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. Louisiana regulates the fishery through coastal buffers, bycatch limits, reporting requirements and other operating rules and commissioned a 2024 season-long scientific study of purse seine bycatch. That study found total bycatch to be about what fisheries managers had expected and was followed by voluntary fleetwide gear changes intended to further reduce red drum mortality.

Like its Atlantic counterparts, Louisiana’s menhaden fishery also supports American fishermen, processing workers, shipyards, mechanics, welders, truck drivers and suppliers across the coast. The fact that Louisiana and Mississippi permit purse seine fishing is not evidence that the fishery is unsustainable, poorly regulated or contrary to American economic interests. The insinuation that Louisiana and Mississippi are acting irresponsibly unfairly discounts the science-based work of their fisheries professionals and is insulting to Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Tyler Bosworth, as well as Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves and Department of Marine Resources Executive Director Joe Spraggins.

On the Atlantic Coast, menhaden are managed as both a harvested species and prey. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) uses ecological reference points designed to account for predator needs while allowing for a sustainable harvest. When the ASMFC adopted that system in 2020, Fosburgh himself called it a “landmark decision” and “a new era in fisheries management.”

The 2025 Atlantic menhaden assessment found the stock is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. Revised natural mortality assumptions lowered historical stock estimates compared with prior assessments, but the assessment shows that biomass increased in recent years and the update did not show that managers had allowed years of excessive harvest. The ASMFC reported that the adopted 2026 catch level had a modeled zero-percent probability of exceeding the ecological overfishing threshold.

Fosburgh’s argument about the predator-prey relationship goes beyond the evidence. The ASMFC modeling shows that even eliminating all menhaden fishing would not, by itself, rebuild striped bass to their biomass target. In 2022–2023, recreational harvest and recreational release mortality accounted for 89 percent of striped bass removals. And an April 2025 ASMFC review of eight datasets covering 298,232 striped bass found that Fulton’s Condition Factor (a measure of fish body condition) remained above the 0.8 stress threshold and concluded the fish “are not starving and would be considered healthy.” This is an important distinction because individual striped bass can be in healthy body condition even while the stock remains below its biomass target. While striped bass feed opportunistically, eating many species in addition to menhaden, the evidence is consistent with the determination that the ecological reference points are leaving sufficient menhaden in the water for predators.

Recent Chesapeake Bay osprey research documents reproductive problems and food stress but does not establish commercial menhaden harvest as the cause. Lead author Dr. Bryan Watts has said his paper did not attempt to link poor osprey reproduction to menhaden harvest. The U.S. Geological Survey has also reported osprey reproductive problems elsewhere along the East Coast and in the Pacific Northwest.

The claim that menhaden are simply “worth more in the water” than when harvested is not an established economic fact. That argument was popularized by the 2012 Lenfest-funded Little Fish, Big Impact report, which relied on global ecosystem modeling rather than an economic valuation of Atlantic or Gulf menhaden, the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem or striped bass fishing. Subsequent peer-reviewed research challenged applying that conclusion as a general rule because predator responses to forage abundance vary by species, ecosystem conditions and spatial relationships.

Menhaden harvested within science-based limits create value through fishing, processing, wages, suppliers, aquaculture, animal and human nutrition, fish-oil products, and providing bait to recreational anglers and commercial fisheries. Recreational anglers may benefit from game fish feeding around concentrated menhaden schools, but that does not establish that every unharvested menhaden creates more economic value for Americans than a harvested one.

The op-ed’s Canadian-ownership argument is equally inaccurate. Omega Protein’s parent company, Cooke Seafood, is headquartered in Canada, but Atlantic menhaden vessels are operated by Ocean Harvesters, a U.S. company employing American union fishermen represented by UFCW Local 400. The Reedville, Virginia menhaden industry dates to the 1870s and has supported generations of Northern Neck families. His continued use of this framing is especially difficult to reconcile with the fact that he worked directly with these companies on these issues from 2015 to 2020 during the development of ecological reference points and has longstanding familiarity with the fishery, its management, and the companies involved. It is further evidence that Fosburgh and the Forage Fish Campaign are willing to present a misleading account in pursuit of their advocacy objectives.

Today the fishery provides family-supporting union jobs in a rural region where comparable employment can be difficult to replace. The operation employs one of the largest minority workforces in Northumberland County, and a 2023 collective bargaining agreement increased base pay, incentive rates and performance bonuses. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference has also warned that proposed restrictions could disproportionately affect African American workers, union families and rural communities, citing labor, wages, race, rural economic opportunity and the dignity of work.

The claim that most of the fishery’s economic value leaves the country is also inconsistent with available sales information. It falsely recasts menhaden management as a story about Canada taking an American resource. For marine ingredients, Omega Protein reports that 70 percent of its 2025 sales went to U.S. customers, 83 percent remained within the United States, Canada and Mexico, and only 17 percent went overseas. The company also reports that no products made from Atlantic menhaden are supplied to Cooke operations. Of the menhaden harvested for bait, 85 percent is sold to domestic U.S. recreational and commercial customers, while just 15 percent goes to Canadian customers, primarily lobster harvesters. The sales data directly contradict this scare-tactic framing.

It is a false economic comparison to compare roughly 250 direct jobs at one Reedville processing facility with the entire economic footprint of recreational striped bass fishing. Fosburgh’s 250-job figure also does not comport with the employment figures cited by ASMFC economists reviewing the reduction sector, who referenced earlier estimates of approximately 519 full- and part-time jobs in Maryland and Virginia, including 347 in Northumberland County alone. Those economists also warned that plant economics can create a shutdown threshold at which employment losses become much larger than a simple proportional reduction.

Finally, the assertion that reduction fishing was “pushed out” of every Atlantic state except Virginia rewrites the industry’s history. The historical record documented by the ASMFC shows a decades-long consolidation of the Atlantic reduction industry shaped at different times by changes in menhaden distribution and abundance, plant consolidation, operating capacity, environmental requirements and individual plant closures. By the early 1970s, the remaining Chesapeake reduction plants were already located in Reedville; by 2006, Reedville was the sole Atlantic reduction processing location. Some states later restricted or prohibited purse seining, but those policies do not explain a consolidation already well underway before the later restrictions. The history of plant consolidation on both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts does not support the narrative that consolidation resulted from states rejecting an unsustainable menhaden fishery. Reedville, Virginia; Moss Point, Mississippi; and Abbeville and Empire, Louisiana, have all been longstanding centers of the menhaden industry, with processing infrastructure, skilled workforces and fishing expertise around which the industry developed and consolidated.

A struggling predator does not by itself prove a menhaden harvest problem. Canadian ownership of a processor does not make American fishermen Canadian. Industry consolidation does not prove states rejected an unsustainable fishery. And self-serving recreational advocacy to displace sustainable commercial fisheries is not an economic analysis.

At least one part of the Forage Fish Campaign’s presentation is accurate: it is a campaign, not an independent research effort or a neutral accounting of the facts. Its arguments repeatedly rely on selective framing and misleading characterizations to influence its audience rather than presenting the full record in context.

Atlantic and Gulf menhaden should continue to be managed through stock assessments, applicable state and interstate rules, targeted research and transparent economic analysis—not by false advocacy narratives that omit the management record, the science and the American workers tied to these fisheries.

About the American Small Pelagics Network

The American Small Pelagics Network represents fishermen, processors, suppliers, and coastal communities connected to fisheries such as menhaden, mackerel, herring, squid, and butterfish. ASPN advocates for sustainable fisheries management that supports critical fish species, while maintaining economic opportunities for fishermen and fishing communities.

Washington Post Osprey Story Blurs the Line Between Science and Special Interests

September 30, 2026 — The following was released by the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition:

The Washington Post on September 27 published a story by Mark Robichaux under the headline “Ospreys are disappearing along the East Coast. Scientists think they know why.”

The osprey breeding failures reported in the story are serious and warrant further study. The reporting, however, repeatedly places the commercial menhaden fishery at the center of a causal question that the scientists themselves say remains unresolved, while omitting key details on menhaden management and the fishery’s economic impact.

The article does acknowledge that Dr. Bryan Watts of William & Mary’s Center for Conservation Biology describes the evidence as an association rather than proof that commercial menhaden harvest caused osprey nesting failures. That critical limitation should have guided the rest of the account.

 

The headline blurs what scientists know and what remains uncertain
 

Researchers have identified food stress as the immediate cause of many Chesapeake Bay osprey nesting failures. They have also associated that food stress with reduced delivery of menhaden to some nests. But the Center for Conservation Biology says the underlying causes of reduced menhaden availability are not clear. It lists commercial harvest as one possible factor, alongside climate change, changing distribution and delayed entry of forage species into the Bay. The headline attempts to draw in readers on a false premise.

The distinction is even more important beyond the Chesapeake. In its 2026 compilation of monitoring from 65 study areas, the center says the underlying cause of low reproductive performance at other Atlantic Coast sites is less clear. It says, “we should view ospreys as sentinels for the marine ecosystem rather than a species imperiled.” It also states, “ospreys appear to be secure throughout much of their range but are struggling within some coastal sites.” The Post’s coastwide headline is broader than those findings.

 

The article treats an unmeasured Bay-wide condition as a premise
 

The story states, without attribution, that menhaden are not present when birds and fishermen need them. Researchers have documented reduced menhaden deliveries at some osprey nests, and fishermen describe difficulty finding dependable concentrations in some locations, while abundant concentrations are observed elsewhere and mass fish kills involving mostly juvenile menhadenhave occurred in North Carolina. Those contrasting observations do not measure adult menhaden abundance throughout the Chesapeake Bay or establish a uniform coastwide shortage.

The article also calls menhaden the principal prey of Chesapeake ospreys. Menhaden are an important prey species, particularly in saltier parts of the Bay, but the peer-reviewed study cited in the story says osprey diet composition shifts with salinity: pairs in higher-salinity waters appear to rely on menhaden, while pairs in low-salinity waters depend primarily on catfish and gizzard shad. A USGS study of osprey diets across Chesapeake Bay sites and a USGS presentation to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) summarizing the site-specific results provide the underlying geographic detail. Catfish and gizzard shad accounted for 77 percent and 20 percent of the diet reported for the Susquehanna, respectively, and 52 percent and 28 percent in upper-Bay estuarine areas. At Poplar Island, striped bass accounted for 48 percent and menhaden 44 percent; in lower-Bay estuarine areas, spotted seatrout accounted for 29 percent and menhaden 24 percent. Those data do not support a single Bay-wide description of menhaden as the principal prey.

The 2026 peer-reviewed osprey study says there is no fishery-independent monitoring of adult menhaden in the Bay. According to the authors, that information gap prevents a direct assessment of the relationship between local menhaden abundance and osprey reproduction. They also say the effect of harvest on adult menhaden abundance in the Bay remains unresolved.

 

The Louisiana passage leaves out regulatory and scientific context
 

The article also turns to Louisiana’s separate Gulf menhaden fishery. It reports the 2023 net failures and later enforcement improvements, but omits existing rules governing coastal buffers, release reporting, gear retrieval, vessel tracking and penalties. Following those incidents, the fishery also moved toward stronger purse seine nets and standardized improved bycatch excluder devicesintended to keep larger fish out of the pumping system.

Robichaux also omits the Louisiana wildlife agency’s summary of a state-commissioned, season-long study of the 2024 fishery, which estimated total bycatch at approximately 3.6 percent of catch by weight. In its 2015-2024 comparison, the agency reported that dead menhaden fishery bycatch accounted for 9.9 percent of red drum removals by weight and 2.7 percent of spotted seatrout removals; directed recreational anglers accounted for the remainder, 90.1% and 97.3%, respectively. The aggregate rate does not resolve every species-specific concern, but the results are material context for evaluating the fishery.

 

Claims from advocates and fishermen are observations and policy positions
 

Robichaux quotes Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association chairman Steve Atkinson asserting that the Bay no longer contains enough menhaden to support the current reduction fishery and a healthy ecosystem. While there is little doubt that Atkinson made that statement, the scientific record cited in the story does not establish it, and it is presented without challenge.

The ASMFC’s Chesapeake work group expressly did not determine whether the supply of menhaden is sufficient to meet predator demand in the Bay. Nor has the commission determined that a 50 percent reduction in the Bay cap—the policy Atkinson supports—would improve osprey reproduction. The range from no reduction through 50 percent consists of management options under consideration, not measured biological remedies. At no point has the ASMFC provided any scientific rationale for a reduction in the Bay harvest.

Anecdotal accounts like charter captain Chris Newsome’s about difficult fishing deserve to be heard, but Robichaux takes that one named Chesapeake captain’s experience and turns it into an unsubstantiated coastwide conclusion. The story cites no coastwide survey, abundance index, standardized fishing data, additional named fishermen or geographic examples to support its assertion that anglers and fishermen throughout the Atlantic Coast are seeing the same pattern. An unspecified collection of anecdotes is not evidence of a coastwide biological trend. By presenting it that way, Robichaux seeks to create the appearance of broad corroboration while giving readers no way to assess how many people were consulted, where they fish or whether their experiences are representative.

 

The article omits important evidence of sustainable management
 

Robichaux reports that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission finds Atlantic menhaden not overfished, with overfishing not occurring, but he does not tell readers that the ASMFC already uses ecological reference points designed to account for menhaden’s role as prey or that it reduced the coastwide catch limit by 20 percent for 2026. It also omits that the U.S. Atlantic menhaden purse seine fishery is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, following independent assessment against the MSC Fisheries Standard.

 

The economic figures are not comparable measures
 

The article compares an estimated $804 million spent on Atlantic recreational fishing trips involving menhaden with roughly $300 million in reported annual sales from Omega Protein’s combined Atlantic and Gulf operations and approximately 260 direct Virginia jobs reported by the companies in the Atlantic menhaden fishery. But it does not explain that the ASMFC’s 2026 Committee on Economics and Social Sciences review expressly describes historical modeling showing that direct harvesting and processing jobs sustain additional non-fishing employment in mechanics, logistics and local services including fuel and lubricants, repairs and maintenance, shipping, vehicle operations, supplies and food, utilities and telephone service, insurance and security, real estate rent, county property taxes and healthcare benefits.

But when it came to the recreational fishing contribution, the story cited a Southwick Associates study commissioned by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership that casts a very wide net in its economic assumptions, counting all tangential spending on entire fishing trips on which an angler used menhaden as bait, chum or scent. This means they counted anything including transportation, fuel, food, hotels and other purchases as an economic contribution of recreational fishing.

In short, the story’s comparison of the industries’ economics is apples and oranges.

Robichaux mentions the direct Virginia jobs but says nothing about the workers who hold them. UFCW Local 400 says Ocean Harvesters’ crews are overwhelmingly local and unionized and that the operation employs one of the largest minority workforces in Northumberland County. The union has documented collectively bargained increases in base pay, incentive rates and bonuses, as well as health-and-welfare benefits. These are family-supporting union jobs that provide strong wages and full benefits to workers, including many without college degrees—opportunities that no other employer in the Northern Neck provides on a comparable basis. The bigger issue remains that the article never illustrates how a reduction in the Bay Cap would benefit recreational anglers, but reductions would almost certainly result in economic harm to menhaden fishermen and their families. 

The ASMFC’s Committee on Economics and Social Sciences identifies the reduction industry as an important part of the Reedville-area economy. It also warns that high fixed costs mean a small reduction in fishing quota could cause larger unemployment effects. That analysis is relevant to any discussion of workers and communities affected by additional restrictions.

The ASMFC’s economic advisers warn that job losses in the reduction sector could be lasting because comparable work may be hard to find locally.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference raised that concern directly with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. SCLC urged Maryland to consider how additional restrictions could disproportionately affect African American workers, union families and rural communities, and to weigh environmental stewardship together with economic justice and the consequences for workers and their families. Robichaux does not mention the union workforce or the civil rights organization’s intervention.

 

The February 18 letter does not show opposition to research
 

Robichaux introduces a February 18, 2025 letter from an industry government relations professional to Virginia Del. Betsy Carr and then immediately quotes Chesapeake Bay Foundation executive Chris Moore alleging that the industry is using scientific uncertainty to stall restrictions. CBF has repeatedly used this letter out of context to allege that the industry opposed research funding.

The companies explained to Robichaux that by February 18, the General Assembly was no longer considering the roughly $2 million needed for the full study; discussion had shifted to whether a reduced amount of funding could support useful interim work. The letter responded by proposing a two-year pilot to test aerial and hydroacoustic survey methods that had not yet been validated for estimating Chesapeake Bay menhaden abundance. It also called for a plan and budget for a peer reviewed research program and, as an alternative, recommended returning to the General Assembly in 2026. Read in full and in context, it proposed research under constrained funding and raised concerns about methodology.

What followed after February 2025 undercuts CBF’s characterization. When the 2025 Virginia session ended without funding the proposed comprehensive study, industry participants helped fund a Science Center for Marine Fisheries research roadmap involving VIMS, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and NOAA; supported a tagging feasibility study; and opened commercial vessels and processing operations to researchers. That record is inconsistent with Moore’s false claim about the industry’s motive.

The research effort gained substantial public funding in 2026: Virginia committed $2 million over two years, and Congress appropriated $2.5 million for Bay-specific research.

Commercial menhaden fishermen and processing workers support coastal communities and supply fishmeal, fish oil, nutritional products and bait to recreational and commercial fishermen from Maine to Louisiana. They deserve coverage that distinguishes observed osprey food stress from an unproven allegation of fishery causation, and that compares harvest and economic figures on an accurate basis.

 

Sources and documents cited

1. The Washington Post article addressed in this release, September 27, 2026.

2. William & Mary Center for Conservation Biology, 2026 Chesapeake Bay osprey breeding results and Atlantic Coast monitoring summary.

3. Peer-reviewed 2026 osprey study.

4. U.S. Geological Survey, Chesapeake Bay osprey diet study; USGS presentation to ASMFC, August 2024.

5. ASMFC, Chesapeake Bay Menhaden Work Group report, April 2025; Atlantic menhaden FAQs; and 2026 catch-limit announcement.

6. Marine Stewardship Council, U.S. Atlantic menhaden purse-seine fishery listing.

7. Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, 2026 commercial fishing regulations and summary of the 2024 menhaden bycatch study.

8. ASMFC Committee on Economics and Social Sciences, updated employment and economic review, July 2026.

9. Southwick Associates, Atlantic menhaden recreational-fishing economic report, June 2026.

10. UFCW Local 400, menhaden workforce account and collective-bargaining announcement.

11. Southern Christian Leadership Conference letter to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.

12. February 18, 2025 letter to Virginia Del. Betsy Carr and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s statement discussing the research dispute.

13. Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Atlantic menhaden research and funding overview.

About the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition

The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition (MFC) is a collective of menhaden fishermen, related businesses, and supporting industries. Comprised of businesses along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition conducts media and public outreach on behalf of the menhaden industry to ensure that members of the public, media, and government are informed of important issues, events, and facts about the fishery.

The Fisherman’s Jim Hutchinson Misrepresents Key Evidence and Attacks Respected New Jersey Scientist’s Objectivity

September 29, 2026 — In The Fisherman’s September 24, 2026 NJ/DE Bay Region Fishing Forecast, New Jersey/Delaware Bay Edition Editor Jim Hutchinson, Jr. pressed for deeper Chesapeake Bay menhaden restrictions while repeating a broader narrative about the fishery that leaves out or conflicts with key parts of the scientific and management record. His report encourages viewers to see the reduction fishery as the cause of Maryland’s bait fishery problems and as a central answer to striped bass concerns, while giving little weight to the current menhaden stock assessment, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) ecological reference points, the history of the Bay Cap, the Commission’s own scientific uncertainty, or analyses that challenge the so-called “gauntlet” theory.

He questioned fisheries scientist Peter Himchak’s objectivity without noting that his own publication had honored Himchak in 1987 with The Fisherman magazine’s Sportsman of the Year award for his work on striped bass restoration and conservation.

The video was published on YouTube and promoted on Facebook, in addition to appearing on TheFisherman.com as part of the magazine’s September 24 report.

We spoke directly with Himchak for his response. He rejected the suggestion that leaving New Jersey’s Division of Fish and Wildlife for industry work changed his scientific standards.

Read the full release at Access Newswire 

VIRGINIA: Scientist’s Menhaden Lecture Separates What Is Known From What Remains to Be Studied

MATHEWS, Va. (Saving Seafood) — September 16, 2026 — Atlantic menhaden may be one of the most debated fish in the Chesapeake Bay, but a Virginia fisheries scientist told a Mathews County, Virginia audience last month that some of the strongest claims surrounding the species supersede what scientists can actually demonstrate.

Dr. Robert J. Latour, a professor at William & Mary’s Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, presented “Atlantic Menhaden — One Fish, Many Opinions” on August 12 at Williams Wharf Landing as part of the Mathews Land Conservancy lecture series.

Over the course of an hour, Dr. Latour walked the audience through the biology of menhaden, the history of a fishery that once stretched along much of the Atlantic Coast, modern stock assessments and the increasingly complicated effort to manage a forage fish that is both commercially valuable and an important part of the marine food web.

The picture he presented was considerably more nuanced than claims advanced by activist groups that portray the commercial fishery as removing too many menhaden from the water and as being the culprit in most if not all of the Chesapeake’s woes.

At the coastwide level, Dr. Latour said, the scientific assessment does not indicate that menhaden are being overfished. Biomass has increased over the assessment period, while recruitment — the addition of young fish to the population — continues to fluctuate from year to year but demonstrates continued reproduction and survival. This is important because menhaden have increasingly become the focus of arguments that commercial harvest is depriving striped bass, ospreys and other predators of food.

Dr. Latour explained that while Atlantic menhaden are still considered a single genetic stock from Maine to Florida, the way that stock is managed has evolved. Rather than relying solely on traditional single-species management, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission now uses ecological reference points designed to account for menhaden’s role as forage and the needs of predator species when setting harvest levels.

A much smaller fishery than it once was

Dr. Latour also put today’s commercial fishery into historical perspective.

At its height, the Atlantic menhaden reduction industry included roughly 145 vessels and about 25 factories. Today, the reduction fleet has contracted to roughly 7 to 10 vessels and a single remaining processing plant.

Dr. Latour cautioned against interpreting that contractionas evidence that fishing exhausted the resource. Economics, changing waterfront development and restrictions on where reduction fishing could occur also significantly contributed to the industry’s disappearance from much of the coast.

Likewise, the current coastwide harvest is only a fraction of its historical peak. Dr. Latour showed the audience that today’s catch is roughly 28 percent of peak historical levels, with removals declining substantially over time and more recently stabilizing under modern harvest controls.

That historical context complicates one of the images frequently used by activist groups in the menhaden debate: enormous nets and large quantities of fish being taken from the water. The biological question is not  whether a catch looks large, but whether the population can sustain its level of fishing mortality.

According to the stock assessment Dr. Latour presented, coastwide fishing mortality is not currently producing overfishing.

The Chesapeake question is harder

Dr. Latour was particularly careful in distinguishing what scientists know about the Atlantic-wide population from what they are working to learn about menhaden specifically inside the Chesapeake Bay.

That difference lies at the center of today’s issue.

Critics of the reduction fishery have increasingly argued that even if the coastwide population is healthy, commercial fishing could be causing “localized depletion” inside the Bay, leaving too few fish in particular places for predators or other fishermen.

Answering that question requires better Chesapeake-specific information about adult menhaden abundance, where the fish are, how long they remain in the Bay and how they move between Chesapeake and coastal waters.

Now, significant resources are being committed to developing that science.

Dr. Latour described an emerging research effort supported by state and private funding. The work is intended to build the scientific foundation needed to better understand menhaden abundance, movement, predator consumption, fishing patterns and possible localized depletion in the Chesapeake Bay.

The Science Center for Marine Fisheries, part of the National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers program, is funding a research roadmap to help scientists determine the most scientifically defensible and effective way to proceed with that work. The project brings together researchers from William & Mary’s VIMS & Batten School, including Dr. Latour, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and NOAA to evaluate potential research methods, timelines and costs.

The research design and execution is developed and directed solely by the team of scientists.

New research aims at the questions behind the menhaden issue

A major portion of the lecture focused not on what scientists already know, but on an ambitious research effort designed to fill some of the gaps that have fueled years of debate.

Researchers plan to investigate seasonal abundance of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay, movement between the Bay and coastal waters, predator consumption, commercial fishing patterns and the possibility of localized depletion. Those are essentially the questions that would have to be answered to place future Bay-specific management decisions on firmer scientific footing.

Tagging could become an important part of that work.

Scientists are examining methods for tagging menhaden and detecting those fish when they later encounter the commercial fishery. If researchers can reliably recover information from tagged fish, the resulting data could help estimate movement, exploitation and eventually abundance — measurements that cannot be obtained by looking at coastwide stock numbers.

The broader research planning effort is evaluating several possible tools for producing those Bay-specific data, with tagging among the most promising approaches. Other potential approaches being evaluated include acoustic and LiDAR surveys, environmental DNA and stable-isotope analysis.

And contrary to claims made by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation that the commercial industry has stood in the way of menhaden research, Dr. Latour described the companies involved in the fishery as participants in the work.

He said he has been communicating with Ocean Harvesters and Omega Protein about ramping up the project, including the possibility of putting detection equipment aboard commercial fishing vessels and at the Reedville processing plant.

The cooperation is not incidental. Researchers themselves do not have the infrastructure to capture menhaden on anything approaching the scale of the commercial fleet, making access to commercial operations essential to an effective tagging program.

Cooperation with industry could allow scientists to test detection equipment under actual fishing conditions and ultimately determine whether information on tagged menhaden can be recovered reliably enough to answer larger population questions.

The research is particularly significant because the questions it seeks to answer are already being used in arguments for additional restrictions on the fishery.

Instead of allowing the debate to rest on competing assumptions about localized depletion, Virginia, scientists and the industry are putting resources into developing the data needed to determine whether it occurs, where it occurs and whether fishing contributes to it.

A fish with extraordinary reproductive capacity

Dr. Latour’s presentation also offered biological context that can get lost in debates centered on the sheer volume of commercial landings.

Menhaden are highly productive fish. In discussing reproduction, Dr. Latour showed that individual females can produce eggs numbering in the millions and used a roughly three-year-old fish to illustrate the species’ substantial reproductive capacity.

That does not mean harvest is irrelevant. It helps explain why fisheries scientists rely on population models, fishing mortality, biomass, recruitment and biological reference points rather than looking at the number of pounds landed in a given year.

Those assessments are intended to answer the fundamental management question: whether the fishery is removing menhaden faster than the population can sustain.

Dr. Latour’s presentation showed that the current coastwide answer is no.

Managing menhaden for predators, too

Another recurring criticism of commercial menhaden fishing is that traditional fishery management fails to account adequately for the fish’s ecological importance.

But Dr. Latour explained that Atlantic menhaden management has moved beyond a purely single-species approach.

Ecological reference points are designed to account for predator-prey relationships when managers determine acceptable levels of menhaden fishing mortality. Striped bass plays a particularly important role in that modeling.

That means the management system does not treat every menhaden left uncaught merely as unused commercial yield. A portion of the population is explicitly being considered in the context of its ecological function.

The difference is important because arguments over menhaden are sometimes framed as a choice between commercial harvest and ecosystem needs, even as the commercial fishery harvests a low percentage of the overall menhaden biomass. The scientific management framework Dr. Latour described attempts to account for both.

The larger message of Dr. Latour’s presentation was that uncertainty should not be confused with evidence for one side or the other.

Record Cobia Tournament Shows a Chesapeake Predator Thriving Alongside Menhaden

August 31, 2026 — Congratulations are in order for the winners and participants in the 2026 Big Man’s Cobia Bonanza.

The ninth annual tournament was held August 14–15 in the Chesapeake Bay, with events based in Norfolk and weigh-ins at Little Creek. By the organizers’ account, it was a record year, with more than 100 boats participating and a top prize of over $38,000, and two runner-up $12,000 prizes. The organizers summed up the weekend with the declaration: “We put Virginia Cobia fishing in the Chesapeake Bay back on top!”

That is worth celebrating. It is also worth considering in the continuing debate over whether the Chesapeake Bay has enough menhaden to support its predators.

Cobia are large predators that spend the summer feeding in Chesapeake waters. Menhaden are part of their prey base and an important forage fish in the same waters where cobia thrive. Scientists and Bay fishing organizations alike have identified menhaden as an important prey species for cobia, and menhaden have traditionally been a preferred cobia bait.

That makes this year’s tournament particularly interesting; the success of a major Chesapeake predator that consumes menhaden is difficult to reconcile with sweeping claims that the Bay lacks sufficient forage for its predators.

The contrast with striped bass is instructive.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission currently classifies Atlantic cobia as not overfished, with overfishing not occurring. Striped bass are also important predators of menhaden, but their stock has followed a different path. In 2024, the peer-reviewed striped bass stock assessment found the stock was overfished. The stock is currently managed with restrictions designed to reduce fishing mortality and rebuild the population.

That history does not mean forage is irrelevant to striped bass, but it does mean discussions about their condition should acknowledge a well-established factor: fishing mortality on striped bass themselves was too high for years.

Menhaden, meanwhile, are already managed with their ecological role in mind. The ASMFC uses ecological reference points specifically designed to account for menhaden as forage and the needs of predators. The Atlantic menhaden stock itself is classified as not overfished, with overfishing not occurring.

Taken together, these facts suggest Chesapeake predator dynamics are more complicated than simply claiming there are not enough menhaden. Cobia and striped bass share the same broader ecosystem and both consume menhaden, yet their stock conditions are very different.

That comparison does not mean menhaden are evenly distributed throughout the Chesapeake Bay or that every predator has equal access to forage at all times. Menhaden are highly migratory schooling fish whose presence in any particular place changes with season, movement and environmental conditions.

Questions about local menhaden movement, seasonal abundance and predator access deserve continued study. And that work is happening.

The federal government, Virginia, and the menhaden industry are all supporting research to better understand menhaden movement, seasonal abundance, predator consumption and fishery interactions in the Chesapeake Bay. Congress has funded Bay-specific research, Virginia has committed funding for work led by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), and the industry is supporting collaborative research involving VIMS, the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and NOAA.

That is how unresolved questions should be addressed: through cooperative science, not through simple assumptions.

In the meantime, what happened at this year’s Cobia Bonanza deserves attention.

Congratulations to the winners. Their success is a reminder that the Chesapeake Bay forage story may be considerably healthier than some of the rhetoric surrounding menhaden would have us believe.

Debate over menhaden fishery continues as it gains national media attention

August 20, 2026 — An ongoing debate over the future of the U.S. Atlantic menhaden fishery has gained national media attention, with the industry pushing back against NGOs and activists.

The Washington Post recently published an opinion piece by Mark Robichaux – a former Wall Street Journal reporter – that reviewed recent back-and-forth over the nation’s menhaden fishery and its claimed impacts on the wider environment, which includes accusations it is responsible for a decline in osprey populations and that it is diminishing an important forage species, resulting in declines in predators like striped bass.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Public will get to weigh in on proposed changes to Chesapeake Bay menhaden harvest

August 7, 2026 — Officials who regulate the Atlantic menhaden industry have debated in recent years how to balance the historic fishery in the Chesapeake Bay with growing concerns about the ecosystem.

On Wednesday, they took their latest step. The Menhaden Board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission advanced a document for public comment with potential changes to harvesting menhaden in the bay.

The commission helps manage fisheries along the East Coast, including 15 states from Florida to Maine.

The proposal outlines options for cutting the amount of menhaden the industry can catch by up to 50% and spreading the harvest more evenly throughout the season.

Ocean Harvesters, the company that harvests menhaden in the bay, said in a statement that the proposal is “a solution in search of a problem.”

“The addendum assembles observations, uncertainties and hypotheticals but never demonstrates that Chesapeake Bay menhaden availability has declined because of the reduction fishery or that the proposed measures would produce any biological benefit,” the company stated.

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.

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.

The public comment period will run through September and October, with the board meeting again in November to consider final approval, according to the commission’s website.

Read the full article at WHRO

MARYLAND: Maryland DNR launches online commercial fishing license renewals

July 24, 2026 — Maryland commercial watermen can now renew their fishing licenses online for the first time.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has added commercial license renewals to its MD Outdoors licensing system, allowing eligible license holders to complete the process without visiting a service center.

The new online option is available only for renewing existing commercial licenses and permits. New licenses, transfers and oyster tag requests must still be handled through a DNR Licensing Service Center.

Watermen with striped bass tag fees or nonresident surcharges must pay those charges online before completing their renewal.

Read the full article at WBOC

ASGA: Striped Bass Accountability Requires More Than Blaming Menhaden

July 13, 2026 — The American Saltwater Guides Association has published a blog post urging its membership and the broader recreational fishing community not to avoid accountability by blaming the diminished striped bass population on a lack of one forage species—Atlantic menhaden—while ignoring the central problem that anglers are “killing more fish than are being born.”

ASGA makes clear that menhaden are critically important to the Atlantic ecosystem and that the organization remains committed to responsible menhaden advocacy. But the post also warns against reducing striped bass conservation to an oversimplified message that “more menhaden = more stripers.” As ASGA explains, “while stripers and bunkers are ecologically connected, their advocacy demands nuance,” and any group claiming that menhaden campaigns alone are the reason anglers are catching large striped bass this year is “a major disservice to striped bass advocates.”

The blog post also highlights what fishermen know from experience: striped bass are opportunistic predators. Anglers on ASGA’s Guide Post Podcast described striped bass feeding on squid, sand eels, river herring, hickory shad, mackerel, crabs, glass minnows, eels, and other forage species depending on season, geography, and conditions. Capt. Ray Jarvis put it plainly: “Striped bass eat everything.” He also cautioned that blaming striped bass declines on a single factor makes people believe “there’s a simple solution to this problem… but it’s not that simple.”

ASGA’s central point is an important one: blaming menhaden, climate change, seals, sharks, or any other single factor may be politically convenient, but it does not replace the need for accountability in striped bass management. As the post says, the harder truth is that “as a collective angling body we are killing more fish than are being born.” That is the conservation challenge that cannot be avoided.

Read the post here

Editorial: Menhaden study should provide data needed for bay management

July 10, 2026 — Menhaden may be a relatively small fish but they have an outsized presence in ongoing debates about the health of the Chesapeake Bay. The menhaden industry and environmental groups have sparred for years over what constitutes sustainable fishing and how the annual catch affects the critical ecosystem on which so much depends.

By including $2 million in the recently approved state budget for a neutral and clear-eyed study of menhaden, Virginia lawmakers hope to provide the data needed to chart a thoughtful path forward. This is long overdue, and both sides of the debate are right to celebrate this important step by the commonwealth.

Prized for their energy-rich oil, Atlantic menhaden play a central role in the Chesapeake ecosystem, as they have done since long before Europeans settlers arrived here centuries ago. They eat plankton and small plants that improve the water quality while also serving as a primary food source for other bay animal and marine life, from striped bass to ospreys to whales.

Read the full article at The Virginian Pilot