Menhaden are a single coastwide stock as are many other species along the Atlantic.  The science is clear that the biomass is healthy and continuing to grow.  The overall allowable catch now is one-third of what was caught for decades due to overly precautionary regulations, and this is after the scientific assessments on menhaden take into account ecosystem needs.   There is no subregional biomass of menhaden in the Ches Bay, just like there is no regional biomass of striped bass, cobia, or other migratory fish, but we don't see efforts to subregionalize catch allowances for those other species in the Bay, and the health of some of those stocks is universally recognized as suffering. Menhaden harvests in the Bay are regulated to a historic low now out of 'precaution'; only one-third of what the harvests were for many decades.  And to target one specific use of menhaden, while allowing all other menhaden harvesters who sell the fish for other uses, to fish inside the Bay, is unjustifiable.  Would regulators allow the harvest of blue crabs which are sold by the bushel  for that market while prohibiting harvest of the same crabs that are intended for picking houses?