Partial moratorium urged on bay menhaden harvests

by Jeremy Cox – 

Sportfishing groups and environmentalists are calling for a partial moratorium on Virginia’s menhaden reduction fishery, citing troubling declines of certain bird and fish species that feed on them.

A petition, dated Dec. 12, 2023 and signed by 18 individuals and organizations, presses the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) to ban related menhaden harvests in the state under most conditions until regulators enact a scientifically based catch limit within the Chesapeake Bay.

The effort targets a fishing fleet operated by Omega Protein, a subsidiary of Canada-based Cooke Inc. The company processes the  small, oily fish  into animal feed and nutritional supplements in a process referred to as “reduction.” Critics have contended for years that Omega’s menhaden harvest leaves too few of the forage fish behind in the bay for ecological purposes, such as supplementing the diets of striped bass, ospreys and other predators.

“We think menhaden are being depleted in the Chesapeake Bay,” said Dale William Neal, lead organizer of the Facebook group Save Our Menhaden and one of the petition’s signers. “You can tell that from the ospreys and from people out on the water like charter fishermen. There are all these indicators that things are going horribly bad.”

A VMRC spokesman didn’t return a message seeking comment. A spokesman with Omega Protein’s office in Reedville also didn’t respond.

The two main organizations behind the 42-page petition are the Chesapeake Legal Alliance and the Southern Maryland Recreational Fishing Organization. The pair also are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed last May challenging Virginia’s management of the menhaden fishery…

(Jeremy Cox is a Bay Journal staff writer based in Maryland. You can reach him at jcox@bayjournal.com.)