Virginia’s Marine Commission has once again rejected another call to better manage the menhaden stock.
“We don’t know if the bay cap should be significantly lowered, we don’t know if the bay cap could be increased. We don’t know if the bay cap needs to exist at all,” said Shanna Madsen, deputy chief of fisheries management for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.
Madsen made that comment last week during a hearing about implementing tighter rules on industrial menhaden harvester, Omega Protein. In a 5-3 vote, the commission shot down a robust, 42-page petition advanced by the Maryland-based Chesapeake Legal Alliance on behalf of the Southern Maryland Recreational Anglers Association to further limit this fishery.
Nearly 2,000 comments supported the petition with only 158 comments in opposition.
Omega Protein, the foreign-owned industrial harvester, lands the lion’s share of menhaden both in the Chesapeake Bay and along the Atlantic Ocean. The margin between them and others isn’t even close.
Omega Protein, which reduces the menhaden into meals to feed farm-raised fish and health supplement oils, operates out of Reedville, Virginia.
Currently, the bay cap is set at 51,000 metric tons. Fishery managers concede that figure is based on historical landings rather than any scientific benchmark. To put Madsen’s observation another way: we don’t know what we don’t know.
Of course, the burning question that’s been swirling around the reduction fishery that targets this nutrient-rich forage vital to the bay ecosystem is simple: Are too many bunkers being removed from the bay?
Anglers and conservationists say the answer is a resounding yes and see a company that uses large vessels, spotter plans and mechanized gear as a major contributor to the current decline of the striper population.
More recently, evidence is mounting that a lack of menhaden in some rivers is causing a concerning dip in osprey fledglings. In 2023, the Center for Conservation Biology in Virginia documented the highest rate of osprey nest failure ever recorded within the lower Chesapeake.
Steve Helber/AP
This file photo shows Omega Protein’s menhaden processing plant on Cockrell’s Creek in Reedville, Virginia. (Steve Helber/AP)
Virginia squandered the opportunity to fund a study that would begin to address these concerns, specifically to help determine if localized depletion is occurring in the Chesapeake. But it was put on the shelf until 2025, much to the dismay of supporters.
Common sense points to Omega lobbyists quietly torpedoing the study bill, although the company denies it. Even if a study is eventually funded, it’ll be years before tangible results are known and perhaps longer until meaningful regulatory changes can be made.
Longtime conservation advocate Steve Atkinson, chairman of the Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association, noted accurately in an article after the most recent setback that Omega Protein “can’t have it both ways.” That means that if the industrial harvester — the last remaining industrialized operation on the entire East Coast — truly supports efforts to collect better science, then why not fully back a bay-wide study? Only they know.
One thing seems pretty clear: There is little to no appetite among Virginia’s legislators to restrict the bay harvest presently, much less restrict Omega to ocean waters. And an outright ban in the bay? That’s a Mars shot in my lifetime unless the resource becomes so depleted managers have no choice but to shut it down.
That leaves the possibility that these oily fish change their migration pattern so significantly to the north that it becomes cost-prohibitive for Omega to chase them up the coast from their Reedville operation. And when profits tank, Omega’s parent company — Cooke Seafood of Canada — will do what all mega-corporations do: shut the whole thing down and move on.
Spring has sprung
In my younger days, when untethered by familial obligations, my weekends would be consumed with one outdoor adventure or another. I gave no more thought to loading up the truck after hearing about a run of bluefish up the Atlantic coast than tying my shoe. I just went.
It mattered little if it had fins or feathers; I’d chase after it and defray some of that monetary cost (gas money, really) by writing about it. And yes, that squeaking you hear is my rocking chair on the front porch, or as Springsteen sang, pathetically reminiscing about “glory days.”
Although my time is not nearly as free as it was a few decades ago, it remains my most valuable commodity—if such a thing is even quantifiable. And I still try my best to follow the sportsman’s calendar.
The first half of spring is a glorious time to live in the Chesapeake Bay region. Several fish species to cast to and turkey in the woods. We have such a great region (albeit a very small one relative to western states) that it is possible to catch a brown trout in the mountains in the morning and surf fish for drum or blues off the Assateague Island beach in the evening.
And although this is probably logistically possible, I only mean it metaphorically, of course. I have never tried to do it, nor intended to. Rushing around in such a manner defeats the purpose of quality outdoor recreational experience. And besides, I want to enjoy my time, not try to be the best at exploiting it.
