Commission Eyes Bay Menhaden Harvest Curb – To Help Watermen, Not Ospreys

ARLINGTON, Va. – A new restriction could be placed on the controversial large-scale Chesapeake Bay harvest of Atlantic menhaden — though not specifically to help the estuary’s struggling osprey population, as conservationists and bird lovers had wanted.

Responding to a complaint that a Virginia-based fishing fleet may be catching up menhaden before they reach Maryland waters, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has agreed to consider stretching out the “reduction fishery” in Virginia’s portion of the Bay to limit how many of the migratory fish can be taken there at any point in the season.

The reduction harvest in the Bay — which occurs only in Virginia because Maryland bans it — is capped at 51,000 metric tons. The commission’s menhaden management board voted 14 to 2 in early August to draw up a plan for distributing that harvest throughout the season. Virginia and New Jersey were the only states to oppose it. 

The move primarily affects Omega Protein, a Canadian company with a fishing fleet based in Reedville, VA. It harvests large quantities of menhaden along the coast and in the Chesapeake for processing into animal feed and human nutritional supplements.

When it met in Arlington, VA, the board had been expected to discuss a range of “precautionary management options” for limiting the Bay’s menhaden harvest. A work group had prepared recommendations in response to widely voiced concerns that there haven’t been enough of the small, oily fish left in the Chesapeake to sustain fish and wildlife species that feed on them, particularly ospreys.

Surveys of ospreys nesting around the Bay in 2024 and 2025 have found that the birds are failing to produce enough chicks to sustain their numbers, with fewer eggs being laid and many hatchlings dying in the nest or simply disappearing. Ospreys feed exclusively on fish, and in the Chesapeake mainstem’s brackish waters, menhaden are their primary food source, though they consume other fish in fresher waters.

“We will absolutely see a broad population decline if the pattern continues,” warned Bryan Watts, director of the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William & Mary, who has been coordinating the survey. Scientists with Watts’ center, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and several other organizations have been monitoring osprey nesting activity this year in 20 locations on both shores of the estuary, up from 12 areas tracked in 2024. 

Watts said storms and intense summer heat the past two years could be a factor in the birds’ difficulties, but the “driver,” he maintains, is “food stress.” A lack of sufficient prey leads ospreys to lay fewer eggs or even abandon nests, he said, and hatchlings can starve to death if their parents can’t provide enough sustenance.

The survey findings have reinforced long-standing calls from conservationists, birders and recreational fishing enthusiasts to shut down large-scale commercial menhaden harvests in the Bay. The commission, which regulates near-shore catches of migratory fish, has balked at doing so, finding that the coastwide menhaden population is healthy and not being overfished.

Omega maintains that there is no scientific evidence of a menhaden shortage in the Bay or that its harvest is the reason for ospreys’ reproductive problems.

Conservationists and recreational fishing groups have petitioned fishery managers to curtail the fleet’s operation in the Bay and filed lawsuits seeking to force action — all without success so far. They contend that Omega’s large harvest in the Bay is causing a localized depletion of the fish there, which the company disputes. Under pressure, Virginia lawmakers agreed a few years ago to undertake a study of the issue, but have since declined to fund the research.

Instead of addressing the ospreys’ menhaden needs as expected, the Atlantic states board turned to whether Omega’s harvest may be depriving other fishermen. Lynn Fegley, fisheries and boating director for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said she’s been hearing from the state’s commercial fishermen that the pound nets they set to catch menhaden every spring have gone virtually empty in midsummer the past two years. She called it a “tremendous red flag” that Omega’s fleet conducted its Bay harvest near the Maryland line about that time.

“There was a time period when there was a lot greater menhaden harvest in the Bay,” she said. “Everyone was catching menhaden, and osprey were covered. But things have changed significantly in the Bay,” she said, adding that “something is seriously wrong.”

Pat Geer, fisheries management chief for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, countered that menhaden are still entering the Bay from the ocean but seem to be doing so later in the year for unknown reasons.

“Before we start splitting up [the Bay] quota,” he said, “it would be nice to know why these things are occurring.”

Commission members representing New York and New Jersey said their fishermen likewise have reported catching fewer menhaden in inshore waters as well. They suggested the issue goes beyond the Chesapeake and should be addressed more broadly.

Fegley acknowledged that something seems to be going on coastwide that deserves investigation, but she argued that Maryland’s commercial menhaden fishery — which supplies bait for the valuable blue crab fishery — is failing and needs help now.

The plan is to be presented at the commission’s winter meeting in February.

The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition, an industry group, accused Maryland’s commission representative of derailing the discussion and questioned whether the board’s vote followed proper procedures.

Steve Atkinson of the Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association said his group’s members were disappointed that the commission did not take stronger action and make it effective immediately.

“We do believe a possible redistribution of the current bay quota by month, as discussed in their meeting, could help reduce fishing intensity at critical times of the year,” he said. “However, given what we now know, we believe the reduction fishery should be moved out of the Bay until science can show it is not causing harm.”