The key to rebuilding will be to rebuild the fishery food supply. Since everything is at all-time lows, there are already several opportunities where we can take action:
- At the October 2025 ASMFC menhaden, meeting the staff proposed a 54% cut in the menhaden Total Annual Catch (TAC) for 2026-2028. The commission approved a 20% reduction in the TAC with the option of revisiting the topic at the 2026 and 2027 meetings. The opposition came from people in the lobster, crab and bait fisheries, who are suffering from the high cost of bait. The 20% reduction will not help anyone. It will drive up the cost of bait even more and not be enough to stop the collapse of the menhaden fishery. An ideal compromise was submitted by Paul Eidman in the written comments, p.8 (link) which is to set a TAC for menhaden of 75,616 mt, allocate 100% for the bait fishery, 0% for the reduction industry, and ban harvesting of Atlantic menhaden for reduction use. We should work to get this option approved this October.
- The Chesapeake Bay is by far the most important nursery for the Atlantic fishery. Omega Protein is so hungry for menhaden for their reduction factory that they are harvesting peanut bunker (juvenile menhaden), the future of the species, much of that is in the bay. There is a VA bill to close the bay to industrial menhaden harvesting.
- Nearly 2 years ago, NEFMC had hearings on Atlantic herring regulations in Amendment 10. They also included addressing river herring issues. One suggestion was to establish time and area closures for Atlantic herring to avoid bycatch of river herring. This was done in the Gulf of ME and there are now runs there in the millions. A second suggestion was to reduce the allowable bycatch of river herring while fishing for Atlantic herring. It was commented that there were many more herring caught as bycatch than that were counted during spring spawning runs in CT. Action on Amendment 10 has been paused since summer of 2024. At their December meeting, the council voted 15-0 with the NOAA rep abstaining to take these two suggestions out of Amendment 10 and include them in the framework for the Atlantic herring specifications which are scheduled to be completed by September for 2017 incorporation. We have to stay on top of this issue. In the meantime, possibly because of the collapse of the Atlantic herring fishery and reduced fishing effort, the river herring in CT have rebounded about 35% in 2024 and 2025.
- There may be a similar issue with river herring bycatch in the mackerel fishery, which is administered by the Mid Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC). There was no vote on this issue at their December meeting, but the NOAA rep commented that he was glad that they didn’t change the bycatch limits because that might close down the menhaden fishery.
- I don’t know if it was the same NOAA rep, but whoever it was voted against phasing in the 54% cut in menhaden TAC at the ASMFC meeting. We have to convince them that the fishery food supply is the issue, because if the menhaden TAC suggested is approved in October, Omega Protein are sure to sue. Amendment 8 failed in court; in this case it was NEFMC that couldn’t support their action. With the current clueless group, I fear that the same thing could happen if we eliminate the allocation of menhaden for the reduction factory.
- For the management system, all we need to measure is one thing, GROWTH. This is the universal measure of success, in business, finance, in farming and in children. We first have to reverse the decline and then continue to grow. The exciting thing is, we don’t know what the limit is, because before the MSA, the Atlantic fishery had been depleted by foreign fishing. The measurement can be done using Fishery Independent Surveys, as described in ASMFC’s Guide to Fisheries Science and Stock Assessment (link). These surveys measure abundance and are already being done by the Northeast Area Measurement and Assessment Program (NEAMAP) and the Southeast Area Measurement and Assessment Program (SEAMAP). Of course, technology keeps advancing, so there might be many better ways to measure abundance, like drones or using radar. There is also a Juvenile Striped Bass Survey (link)done by the Department of Natural Resources in Chesapeake Bay.
- With the closure of the menhaden reduction fishery, the menhaden population should begin to expand. With the pressure from predators diluted by more menhaden available, populations of herring and mackerel, as well as other forage fish not managed, should begin to increase. Recruitment rates of other predatory fish, such as striped bass should show an increase because of reduced predatory pressure on the juveniles. Juvenile surveys, similar to the Juvenile Striped Bass Survey (link) should be increased.
- This will be unlike other recovery programs, where the fishery is shut down or catch limits severely reduced. The main goal should be to maintain the growth rate of the menhaden, and that might include increasing the harvest rate of predatory fish-wouldn’t that be weird?
- Once the population of menhaden stops growing, all catch limits should be frozen at that point. This is the new norm, the Spawning Stock Biomass at Maximum Sustainable Yield, (SSBmsy). Lets hope that they have collected enough data over the previous years of recovery that they can properly manage the fishery this time.
- While we are working on the fish in the fishery, there are some problems with the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
- The MSA specifies each species individually.
- Optimum yield and Maximum Sustainable Yield are hypothetical ideas and need accurate data , which Is not available, to implement.