FINALLY! VIRGINIA APPROVES MENHADEN STUDY

 

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 so-called “Bay Cap” was first put into place in Addendum II to Amendment 1 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden, which was adopted in 2006.  At the time, there were concerns that

“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.”

Governor Spanberger’s budget amendment apparently generated some debate on the floor of the legislature, but in the end, it was approved.

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.

Some of the groups opposing the current level of menhaden harvest also had good things to say about the study.  Will Poston, speaking for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, observed that

“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.