08/14/2026
Wanted to share the comments I read at the recent Menhaden Management meeting. Very grateful for the few others who made comments; thank you for showing up.
Good afternoon, members of the Board. My name is Paul Eidman, Founder and President of Menhaden Defenders.
The signs of trouble are unmistakable. The experts at catching bunker — Omega Protein — are now flying spotter planes hundreds of miles from Reedville to Cape Cod Bay, searching for what remains of the adult biomass so they can maximize yields. Their vessels steam hundreds of miles to the New York–New Jersey Bight and return with only partial loads — almost entirely pre-spawn juveniles, just 6–8 inches long, fish that have never contributed a single egg to the future of this stock.
Across the coast, the ecosystem is signaling distress: osprey nests failing, striped bass, bluefish, weakfish, and fluke at historic lows, whale-watching vessels struggling to find marine mammals, and coastal waters that look increasingly lifeless. Outdoorsmen, fishermen, birders, and whale watchers are all demanding action because they see this collapse happening in real time.
And the largest estuary on the East Coast — the Chesapeake Bay — is dying before our eyes. Once called the jewel of the East Coast, it is being exploited while its key forage fish is ground into dog food. Taking the most vital food source out of the estuary — out of the mouths of striped bass, osprey chicks, and more — makes zero sense. It is insane.
What I’m saying is straightforward: for years, the ASMFC has catered to Omega Protein’s push for the highest possible harvest levels, even after the stock was previously declared overfished. Yes, we recognize the stock is not classified as overfished at this moment, but the record shows exactly where this approach leads — right back to overfishing and ecosystem decline.
Every Atlantic coast state has already stopped reduction fishing inside the 3-mile line — except Virginia, which continues to allow Omega Protein to remove roughly a billion menhaden a year to be ground into pet and aquaculture feed. And this is happening within an already overfished East Coast forage ecosystem, where river herring, shad, Atlantic herring, eel, and grass shrimp are all depleted.
We do not need to wait for a coastwide ecosystem collapse to act.
Menhaden Defenders calls on this Board to take meaningful action now: suspend or restrict the reduction fishery, push Omega Protein out of the Chesapeake Bay past the 3-mile line, cut the quota by more than 50 percent — especially in the Bay, expand independent ecosystem-based research, and align management with the Commission’s own ecosystem-based framework.
Nature is not whispering — it is shouting. The ecosystem is failing in plain sight. You have the authority, the responsibility, and the obligation to act now. Delay is not caution — delay is collapse. Put the ecosystem first. Protect the forage base. Do your job.
Thank you.
