This Petition is just more of the same, brought by people who are either uninformed or refuse to believe in the current best available science.  Atlantic menhaden is already conservatively managed and the only forage stock in the U.S. managed for its ecosystem role using ecological reference points (ERPs).  The fishery is also certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council, the world’s leading conservation certification organization.  The latest stock assessment, produced in October 2025, reinforces that the stock is not undergoing overfishing and is not overfished.  Additionally, for the Chesapeake Bay, there is already a precautionary ‘Cap’ of 51,000 metric tons which is approximately one-third of the historical average harvest in the Bay, this despite the fact that there is no scientific evidence that there is a shortage of menhaden inside the Bay.  Humans (fishermen) only catch about one percent (1%) of the estimated coastwide number of Atlantic menhaden, and the current ‘Cap’ inside the Bay represents approximately one-quarter of one-percent (0.28%) of the total number of estimated Atlantic menhaden.   A few other scientific facts that people ignore are:

1.  Menhaden are not the only, nor most important, forage in Chesapeake Bay.  NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Forage Action Team, which studies forage status in the Bay, reported “Diet analyses determined that polychaetes were the most important prey taxa for a suite of Chesapeake Bay fish predators…”  In fact, menhaden did not make the ‘Top-10’ most important forage in the Bay.  Read the Report. 
2. Menhaden are a major food source for striped bass, however striped bass health surveys taken by VMRC and PRFC, some going back 1990 covering over 35 years and nearly 300,000 fish samples, have recorded that in every single year going back to 1990 the striped bass population in the Bay has been noted as either ‘Normal’, or ‘Very Healthy’, and in no year were they cited as ‘Stressed’.   It is clear that striped bass are finding plenty of food.  One of the challenges for striped bass is low recruitment, which obviously is not tied to inadequate forage but more likely other environmental factors.  Additionally, science points to fishing pressure and high release mortality which often kills more fish than both commercial and recreational harvests combined.  Scientists have gone on record to say that ALL menhaden fishing could stop in the Atlantic and striped bass numbers would not fully recover until fishing pressure on that species is controlled.  When striped bass numbers declined in the 1980s, a moratorium on striped bass fishing was enacted from 1985 to 1995 and in that time that biomass completely recovered because the overfishing of that stock was stopped.  During that time period, menhaden fishing coastwide was two times what it is now, and menhaden fishing inside the Chesapeake Bay was three times what it is now, clearly demonstrating that menhaden fishing was not the problem with striped bass numbers.  
3. Unlike striped bass recruitment in the Bay, menhaden recruitment in the Bay is increasing, with the past three years, 2023-2025, having the highest recruitment since the early 1990s.  The Report released in October 2025 stated that “Atlantic menhaden and bay anchovies were widespread in the Bay for the third consecutive year.”
4. Science has documented that there are other predatory fish species in the Bay whose numbers are growing including spiny dogfish, red drum, spotted sea trout, cobia, Spanish mackerel and, of course, blue catfish.  These species would not be in the Bay if they were deprived of food. 
5. There is also no credible science pointing to lack of menhaden due to purse seine fishing in the Bay as the reason for declines in Osprey populations around the Bay.  According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), osprey nest failures are occurring in many places around the country including California, Washington state, Florida, South Carolina, and numerous other areas where menhaden or menhaden fishing are not present.  Osprey numbers were up 1,800 percent in the Bay from 1960s to 2022 and have seen a 5-8 percent decrease the past few years.  As a reminder, most of the 1,800 percent increase in numbers occurred while menhaden fishing in the Bay was three times (3X) higher than today, before the precautionary harvest restrictions.  USGS noted that there could be many causes for these challenges including predation by competitors like eagles, excessive heat, environmental contaminants, and that more information is needed to determine the cause. Additionally, USGS does not cite menhaden as the primary food source for osprey in any area of the Bay.  In the fresher water areas of the Bay they cite catfish as the primary food source.  In the Popular Island, mainstem of the Bay, they cite striped bass as the primary food source, with menhaden as second.  And in the higher salinity lower Bay area they cite spotted sea trout as the primary food source with menhaden as secondary.  These were not new studies, but some go back over 15 years before osprey started experiencing nesting failures.  Finally, osprey typically lay eggs between mid-April and mid-May, with many nest failures occurring before the purse seine fishery even starts their seasonal fishing efforts.   

Menhaden fishing in the Bay is at the lowest level since the early 1900s due to precautionary restrictions.  The overall biomass is extremely healthy and NOT OVERFISHED and NO OVERFISHING is occurring.  If people would look at the currently available science, and the long history of all these interrelated species, they would see that six menhaden boats fishing today at highly restricted catch levels are not the cause of every issue facing the Chesapeake Bay.