WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESS Newswire / August 11, 2025 / One year ago, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) presented data to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) showing that osprey reproduction was under stress in multiple regions across the country-including on the West Coast and along parts of the East Coast where no menhaden fishing occurs at all. Their findings suggested that while the Chesapeake Bay osprey decline was real, it likely stemmed from a complex array of ecological stressors, not simply the availability of menhaden. In fact, USGS explicitly did not attribute osprey declines to menhaden harvest pressure.
Despite hearing from the USGS experts, the ASMFC formed a Work Group focused on menhaden management in the Chesapeake Bay, spurred by osprey concerns. The group was tasked with exploring precautionary management measures-such as time-area closures-to protect piscivorous birds and fish during critical life stages. That Work Group presented its report at the May 2025 board meeting.
Heading into the August 7 meeting, many stakeholders expected the discussion to focus squarely on the osprey topic and how-or whether-to pursue management options justified by the Work Group's findings. Instead, what unfolded was a striking pivot in purpose, led by Maryland's representative, Commissioner Lynn Fegley.
Commercial menhaden fishermen at work.
Fegley's Presentation: A Bait and Switch
When Ms. Fegley took the floor, she offered only a one sentence acknowledgment of the original concern that launched the Work Group-mentioning the word osprey just twice and the USGS presentation once. From there, she quickly reframed the entire, year-long conversation around a new issue: anecdotal reports from Maryland pound net fishermen suggesting that menhaden were no longer appearing in northern Chesapeake Bay waters during the summer months.
Instead of returning to the ecosystem-based concerns outlined by the Work Group (and the explicit osprey focus it was formed to address), Fegley built a case around fishery access issues, claiming that the increase in mid-Bay harvest activity by the menhaden reduction fleet was possibly creating a "gauntlet" that menhaden must pass through-limiting escapement to areas where smaller fisheries operate. This narrative was tied to the original Work Group report only by a reference to one table from the document, repurposing its data to support a new narrative: that Maryland's pound net fishery-not its birds-was in crisis.
This narrative shift culminated in a motion to task the Plan Development Team (PDT) with creating management options to redistribute the Chesapeake Bay reduction harvest quota more evenly across the fishing season.
The Motion: A Departure from the Agenda and Original Charge
The agenda item under which this discussion occurred was titled:
"Discuss Technical Committee Direction in Response to Work Group Report on Precautionary Management in Chesapeake Bay."
The stated intent of the Work Group, per its original charge in 2024, was to:
"…consider and evaluate options for further precautionary management of Chesapeake Bay menhaden fisheries, including time and area closures to be protective of piscivorous birds and fish during critical points of their life cycle."
Maryland's pound netters, while economically important, are neither piscivorous birds nor fish. The motion that ultimately passed had little to do with protecting wildlife or following the technical direction envisioned in the Work Group's mandate. Instead, it asked the PDT to examine a quota partitioning scheme that will threaten the reduction fleet operations under the justification of alleviating fishery bottlenecks for Maryland harvesters.
This raises a significant procedural and governance concern: the motion that passed did not match the scope of the agenda item, nor did it reflect the original justification for the Work Group's existence. Rather than a technical discussion of wildlife protection or stock assessment, Ms. Fegley drew the Board into a policy discussion about fishery allocation and timing, prompted not by new data, but by anecdotal reports and political pressure.
It is important to note that at no point over the last year's worth of meetings has any scientist reviewed this process or made any determination that there is an actual problem with menhaden availability in the Bay. The process is being forced on the Commission by the Maryland delegation, led by Fegley and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Allison Colden.
Procedural Irregularities: Should the Motion Have Been Ruled Out of Order?
Given the mismatch between the agenda title, the Work Group's formal mandate, and the motion that passed, a strong argument could be made that the discussion and resulting motion were out of order. The Board had been convened to review scientific and technical direction stemming from an osprey-centered report-not to debate harvest redistribution in favor of a specific user group.
Moreover, the choice to bypass the Technical Committee, which was identified in the agenda as the committee which was to be given direction, and instead assign the work to the PDT adds further complexity. This shift in responsibility-framed as necessary because "this isn't a technical issue"-adds further grounds to argue that the entire discussion and eventual motion was out of order. It appears that the ASMFC wants to unjustly pick winners and losers among its menhaden stakeholders.
Maryland's Shifting Narrative: From Incidental Bycatch to Directed Fishery
The fishery Maryland now claims must be "saved" from interception by the Virginia reduction fishery is not the fishery it described when the 20% coastwide quota reduction was enacted in Amendment 2 to the Atlantic Menhaden Fishery Management Plan. It is not a directed menhaden fishery at all, but an incidental bycatch fishery-a designation created as a direct result of Maryland's own efforts and arguments at the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board.
In December 2012, Ms. Fegley described the state's pound net fishery as, "These are pound nets where they're fishing primarily for striped bass in November", with menhaden taken only as incidental bycatch. She explained that pound nets set for striped bass might "get a slug of menhaden" simply due to the nature of the gear. This was the context for her motion to raise the bycatch allowance for nondirected fisheries from 2,000 to 6,000 pounds per day-allowing pound-net operators to keep incidental menhaden catches after Maryland's quota was met. At the time, the framing was explicit: this was a nondirected, stationary gear fishery, and the higher allowance was meant to avoid waste and dead discards, not to enable a targeted menhaden harvest.
Yet Maryland is now recasting the same fishery in a very different light. At last week's meeting, Ms. Fegley said, "we're hearing from commercial fishermen they're not even setting their nets in the Potomac because the fish aren't there." She was referring to pound netters fishing in the summer months-a different seasonal fishery entirely from the Fall striped bass pound net fishery she described in 2012. Back then, Maryland argued that menhaden in the pound nets were unavoidable bycatch that should not count against their Total Allowable Catch, and ASMFC created an exception so these post-quota bycatch landings required no payback.
Now, when fishermen report low summer menhaden catch, Maryland frames the pound net fishery as a targeted menhaden fishery under threat from Virginia's "intercept" fleet-itself an incredible stretch to suggest six menhaden fishing boats "blockade" the lower Chesapeake Bay. When landings are high and risk closing the fishery, pound nets are described as incidental bycatch gear to justify keeping menhaden beyond quota. This shifting narrative is inconsistent at best and deliberately misleading at worst. Maryland spearheaded the 2012 coastwide reduction in menhaden landings while securing a special bycatch carveout for its own pound nets. Today, they insist that this same "incidental" fishery-whether fall striped bass nets with unavoidable menhaden or summer nets now cast as a directed fishery-must be preserved as if it were a primary target fishery. When it's Maryland's quota on the line, pound nets are just bycatch gear; when they want to limit Virginia's fleet, pound nets are suddenly a vital directed fishery. This two-faced position underscores a pattern of selective framing, dishonesty, and self-interest.
Were There "No Menhaden" or An Abundance?
Last year, at the August 2024 ASMFC meeting, when arguing for restrictive measures on large purse seine vessels and the creation of the work group on menhaden and osprey, Maryland's two delegates painted a stark picture of forage fish scarcity in the state's waters. Governor Appointee Russel Dize stated flatly, "In Maryland, this year we have no menhaden, none," citing a friend's pound-net catch as evidence. Ms. Fegley echoed the point: "There are no menhaden in Maryland. The artisanal stational gears that Maryland watermen fish are not capturing bait for our crab fisheries."
Yet, in the weeks that followed, two events directly contradicted those claims. In early September, roughly 24,000 dead menhaden floated to the surface of Baltimore Harbor-a fish kill that the Chesapeake Bay Foundation attributed to low-oxygen conditions from poor water quality, not to a lack of menhaden in the ecosystem.
Then, in October, Maryland DNR's annual juvenile striped bass survey reported that menhaden abundance was nearly equal to 2023 levels, which had been the highest recorded since 1990. Far from supporting the ASMFC testimony that Maryland waters held "no menhaden," these events demonstrate that menhaden were present in substantial numbers-enough to produce a large fish kill and to sustain historically high abundance in a statewide survey. The commissioners' declarations stemmed from a preconceived bias against Virginia's historic menhaden fleet, and were not borne out by the subsequent ecological evidence from their own waters and their own agency's science.
A Cautionary Note on Process and Precedent
Ms. Fegley's presentation led the Board to pivot discussion from unproven osprey allegations to economically motivated redistribution of harvest quotas. This should raise concerns for all stakeholders and marks a troubling moment for the ASMFC.
The Commission allowed one commissioner to use an unproven ecological allegation as the gateway to initiate a discussion on a new form of management. In bypassing the original scope and purpose of the Work Group, the Board risks setting a precedent where new management measures can spring from unrelated commission work groups to benefit narrow regional interests, without transparent scientific justification or procedural safeguards.
About the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition
The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition (MFC) is a collective of menhaden fishermen, related businesses, and supporting industries. Comprised of businesses along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition conducts media and public outreach on behalf of the menhaden industry to ensure that members of the public, media, and government are informed of important issues, events, and facts about the fishery.
Press Contact
Menhaden Fisheries Coalition
(202) 595-1212
www.menhaden.org
SOURCE: Menhaden Fisheries Coalition
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire:
https://www.accessnewswire.com/newsroom/en/food-and-beverage-products/from-osprey-to-pound-netters-a-shift-in-purpose-at-the-atlantic-states-m-1059505
