As regular readers of this blog already know, Atlantic
menhaden management has been a hot-button topic in East Coast fisheries
management for a very long time. One of
the particularly thorny issues is the so-called “bay cap,” an arbitrary, 51,000
metric ton limitation on the amount of menhaden the big purse seiners of the
reduction fleet can take out of the Chesapeake Bay in any one year.
“The potential for localized depletion exists in Chesapeake
Bay as a result of…concentrated harvest [by the reduction fleet]. Possible outcomes of localized depletion
include compromised predator-prey relationships and chronic low recruitment of
larval menhaden to the Chesapeake system.
Reviews of existing data suggest that predator-prey relationships could
currently be compromised and recruitment of larval menhaden has chronically
declined during the last two decades.”
At the same time, Addendum II acknowledged that
“Sufficient scientific data are not available to satisfactorily
address the potential for localized depletion in the Bay or to identify
specific reasons for predator finfish deficiencies or low larval menhaden
recruitment…”
So, in an effort to keep Bay menhaden landings from
increasing while the required data was being collected, Addendum II capped Bay
reduction landings at the fleet’s average annual landings for the years 2000
through 2004, 109,020
metric tons.
The
Bay Cap has since been reduced to 87,216 metric tons (Amendment 2, 2012),
and finally to
51,000 metric tons (Amendment 3, 2017).
However, despite those reductions, the basic situation remains unchanged
from what it was 20 years ago: People
still talk about localized depletion, and there is still insufficient data to
demonstrate whether it exists.
The Bay Cap, at whatever level, remains an arbitrary,
precautionary measure, without statistical support.
Finally, that may be about to change.
Since
at least 2024, Virginia legislators have introduced bills to fund a study of
menhaden in Virginia waters, but those bills have always failed to get out of
committee. It
looked like the menhaden research bill introduced in 2024 would follow the same
path. However, this time, Virginia
Governor Abigail Spanberger sent a proposed budget amendment back to the
legislature which would appropriate two million dollars, in annual one million
dollar installments,
“for Atlantic menhaden research necessary to inform a
scientifically defensible and ecologically meaningful Chesapeake Bay harvest
cap.”
The budget amendment provides that
“This report will be generated by [the Virginia Institute of Marine
Science] in collaboration with [the Virginia Marine Resources Commission], and
with the cooperation of relevant stakeholders, including recreational anglers,
the reduction and bait fishery sectors, and non-governmental organizations. VIMS will create an annual proposal to draw
from the funding, until delivery of the final report that provides an approach
to setting a scientifically-defensible Chesapeake Bay harvest cap.
“The development of this report may be informed by research
on (i) the seasonal abundance of Atlantic menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay; (ii)
the movement rates of Atlantic menhaden between the Atlantic coast and the
Chesapeake Bay; (iii) the impacts of predator (e.g. striped bass, osprey, and
other species) demand and consumption of Atlantic menhaden on the Atlantic
coastal population; (iv) the spatial and temporal patterns of the Atlantic menhaden
commercial fishing effort in the Chesapeake Bay; (v) and the possibility of
localized depletion of Atlantic menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay.
“This work can utilize recommendations from the report delivered
October 1, 2023, titled ‘Atlantic Menhaden Research Planning’ and/or the
expected December 2026 deliverables from the Science Center for Marine
Fisheries (SCIMFIS)-funded project titled ‘Development of a Research Roadmap
for Atlantic Menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay.’
“The Virginia Department of Workforce Development and
Advancement and the Virginia Economic Authority, in consultation with the
Menhaden Management Advisory Committee of the VMRC, will contribute analysis
and recommendations to the Menhaden report on potential workforce impacts.
“Beginning with fiscal year 2028 and in subsequent fiscal
years thereafter, VMRC shall provide new scientific data and research products
generated under this item by VIMS, to inform the annual discussion and deliberations
of Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) on any proposed changes
to the coast-wide or Chesapeake Bay total allowable catch levels.
“The committee report shall include (i) projected workforce
impacts from coast-wide and Chesapeake Bay changes in total allowable catch,
and (ii) recommendations for addressing impacts to workers by changes in total
allowable catch.
“VIMS shall present report progress, current findings and any
recommendations, along with their annual proposal to draw from the menhaden
funding for the following year to the Chairmen of the Senate Committee on
Agriculture, Conservation, and Natural Resources, the House Committee on
Agriculture, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources, the Secretary of Natural and
Historic Resources, the Ecological Reference Points Workgroup of ASMFC, and the
Menhaden Management Advisory Committee of VMRC, yearly by October 1.”
That’s exactly the sort of comprehensive menhaden study that
we’ve been needing for the last couple of decades, that can finally answer the
question about menhaden abundance in the Chesapeake Bay, localized depletion,
and the dependence of Bay predators on the menhaden resource.
For
years, we’ve been seeing advocates on one side of the debate making breathless
comments such as
“Omega has decimated the stock!
“They should be banned from fishing in the Bay Area and the
whole east coast for that matter!!
“They harvest the entire stock that they find with their
drones and airplanes!!
“There is no stock when they are done!!!”
and
“I can’t really convey in words how much I hate those boats. And if anybody has a problem with my opinion,
I can give you a list of reasons why they should be banned.”
On the other side of the table, we find the menhaden
industry attempting to strike a very rational posture, claiming that their
anti-regulatory stance is well rooted in science. Thus, after a recent scientific
paper concluded that a recent spate of osprey nest failures might be primarily
attributed to reduced availability of menhaden, particularly in high-salinity
portions of the Chesapeake Bay, Monty Diehl, the CEO of Ocean Harvesters, which
operates the only menhaden reduction fleet on the East Coast, responded by
saying,
“This study documents osprey concerns, but it does not prove
that our fishery caused it. Many of the
study areas discussed are not places where our vessels fish, and the paper
appears to accuse commercial harvest without showing a clear connection between
actual fishing activity and the nesting problems it describes.”
And that’s all true as far as it goes.
But it’s also true that Ocean Harvesters removes tens of
thousands of metric tons of menhaden from the Chesapeake Bay each year, and Ocean
Harvesters offers no alternative explanation as to why menhaden availability
might be down.
They just protest, “You can’t prove it was us.”
Similarly, the
Menhaden Fisheries Coalition is quick to point out that the menhaden stock is
not overfished, but it chronically fails to mention that the
2025 stock assessment update found menhaden fecundity (the number of eggs
produced by the population, which the assessment uses as a proxy for abundance)
was only 5% above the threshold that defines an overfished stock, so while the
stock was “not overfished” at the end of 2024, the last year considered in the
assessment update, it was creeping ever closer to that designation, and we
don’t really know whether it might have crossed that threshold sometime between
December 31, 2024 and today.
So it’s probably fair to say that, while both sides of the debate
are, technically, telling what they believe to be the truth, they’re also
presenting their truths in ways that might be considered deceiving.
The Virginia menhaden study, when it concludes, is unlikely
to give either side anywhere to hide.
Ambiguity favors the industry, for so long as there is room
to argue that there is no proof that localized depletion exists, or that the
fishery is harming the Chesapeake ecosystem, they can probably continue to argue
successfully against harvest reductions.
If the study finds that localized depletion is indeed
occurring, and that predator populations are being adversely affected by a
decline in menhaden abundance, it’s going to be hard for the industry to do
anything but accept the conclusions, although it might very well decide to
commission its own study that it hopes will reach different conclusions.
Based on past performance, should the Virginia study’s
results lead the ASMFC to attempt to reduce or, although highly unlikely, even
eliminate the reduction fishery within the Chesapeake Bay, the industry would
likely shift its emphasis from science onto economics, pointing to the hardship
a further reduction would cause its employees, and argue that any reduction be
phased in over the longest possible period.
Although,
to be fair, Ocean Harvester’s Deihl did say that
“We look forward to continuing to work with the Virginia
Institute of Marine Science in collaboration with the Virginia Marine Resources
Commission to develop a scientific study of the Bay’s Atlantic menhaden
population.”
Whether Ocean Harvesters will continue to look forward to
working with the VMRC should the study’s findings be contrary to their interests
is something yet to be determined.
“Unfortunately, many questions remain about the health of the
Bay’s menhaden population and the iconic species such as menhaden that depend
upon it. This is precisely why
independent science on menhaden in the Bay is so important.”
And, from what I’ve seen of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation,
it has enough institutional integrity that, if the study ultimately determines that there is no localized depletion taking place,
that the 51,000 metric ton cap is more than adequate to protect the menhaden in
the Chesapeake Bay, or even that the cap could be safely raised or possibly eliminated,
some of its folks might grumble a bit, but they will accept the science and set
about adjusting its programs accordingly.
However, I doubt that will be true of the hordes of
individuals that have been worked up over the years by the various “campaigns”
and smaller-scale efforts to cripple or eliminate the reduction fishery, as
well as the campaign spokesmen themselves.
Should the study come out with conclusions that they don’t
want to hear, based on the way they’ve behaved in the past, I would expect those
who worship at the Altar of the Divine Menhaden to react the way any hard-core
believer responds to heresy: They’ll likely
accuse those who conducted the study of being paid off by, or at least biased
toward, the menhaden industry. They will
argue that the science is wrong, and that the reduction industry is, regardless
of what the science says, killing too many fish and causing dire harm to everything
from blue crabs to humpback whales.
That’s because their anti-reduction fleet sentiment is
powered by emotion, not data, and emotion is inherently irrational, and so more-or-less
immune to rational appeals.
But for now, we can only wait and see, secure in the
knowledge that, in just a few years, we will finally have a scientific
understanding of the menhaden within the Chesapeake Bay.
That might not make some people happy, but making people
happy isn’t truth’s job.
Its job is just to be true.
