ACCESS Newswire
25 Oct 2025, 00:43 GMT+10

Coalition supports new SCEMFIS-funded research roadmap to develop ecological foundation for Bay management; regulators' statements confirm current cap not based on science

WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESS Newswire / October 24, 2025 / The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition today welcomed a newly funded Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) project to produce a research roadmap for Atlantic menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay as a long-overdue opportunity to replace political compromise with sound science.

For nearly twenty years, the Chesapeake Bay menhaden harvest cap, a harvest limit that applies only to the reduction fishery, has been managed without biological justification. Regulators and scientists have repeatedly acknowledged this fact. The new project from SCEMFIS will identify the research needed to finally develop what the scientists leading the project call a 'scientifically defensible and ecologically meaningful Chesapeake Bay cap.'

Regulators Acknowledge Current Bay Cap Was Never Based on ScienceWhen the cap was first imposed in 2006, it was a political compromise between Virginia, Maryland, and environmental groups, not a conservation measure grounded with a scientific justification. As the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's (ASMFC) own Executive Director at the time, Vince O'Shea, testified before Congress in 2008, the Bay Cap was established 'in response to a political problem' and 'there was not a science basis for the Cap.'

That view was echoed by ASMFC's scientific staff. In 2012, the Menhaden Plan Development Team concluded, 'The annual Chesapeake Bay harvest cap is not based on a scientifically quantified harvest threshold, fishery health index, or fishery population level study.'

In a follow-up report that same year, the ASMFC Technical Committee stated: 'The TC stands by its previous recommendation that, given the current fishery and history of landings, there has not appeared to be any biological benefit to the Chesapeake Bay Reduction Cap since it was implemented.'

The Technical Committee reinforced this position during the Commission's December 2012 meeting, with the then-chairperson noting that, 'Given the current structure of the industry right now, and the fish that they harvest, and the biological information that we're collecting, there doesn't seem to be any benefit' from the Bay Cap.

Previous ASMFC Chairman Confirms Lack of Evidence for Bay CapWhen Virginia appealed a 41% cut to the Bay Cap in 2018, ASMFC Chairman Jim Gilmore stated in a formal letter that 'there is no evidence in Amendment 3 to support the view that lowering the Bay Cap was necessary to protect the Bay as a nursery area for menhaden and there is no evidence to suggest the Bay Cap is necessary to protect the Bay as a nursery for other species.' He concluded: 'Leadership agrees the Amendment does not provide sufficient evidence to support such claims.'

Call for a Science-Based ApproachDespite repeated coastwide stock increases and consistent findings that the Atlantic menhaden population is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring, the Chesapeake Bay menhaden harvest cap has remained fixed at 51,000 metric tons, less than half the level originally set in 2006. Meanwhile, the ASMFC has allowed other Bay fisheries, including Maryland and Potomac River bait harvesters, to increase their quotas.