The recent fish kill of Atlantic menhaden in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor reminds us of the importance of the Chesapeake Bay’s forage fish (There are thousands of dead fish in the Baltimore harbor, again, Sept. 23, 2025). While sad and unsightly, fish kills are relatively natural, caused by a seasonal temperature change that brings low-oxygen water from the bottom of the harbor to the surface.

What’s not natural is the more than 100 million pounds of menhaden killed each year by a massive reduction fishing industry in Virginia, the only state on the East Coast that allows this type of fishing.

The 25,000 fish that died in Baltimore in September are a minuscule fraction of those harvested industrially in Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay. The reduction fishing process involves spotter planes that identify large schools of menhaden from above. They’re hunted down, caught with enormous nets in bulk, then reduced into food meal or fish oil supplements.

One company, Omega Protein, has monopolized the Chesapeake Bay’s keystone forage fish for decades. Virginia’s harvest limit inside the bay is 51,000 metric tons of menhaden, which would cover the Annapolis historic district with a foot of the fish. But we have no science available to confirm if this is a sustainable level.

It doesn’t just impact Virginia. This fishery is literally vacuuming up 100 million pounds of menhaden before they’re able to swim up into the rest of the bay, where they’d support a vital ecosystem, feeding our starving osprey and our declining striped bass. Maryland watermen, many of whom use menhaden as crab bait, have been really struggling. According to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Maryland’s bait harvest dropped from 3.5 million pounds in 2022 to 1 million pounds in 2024.

Omega Protein employs several hundred people in Reedville, Virginia. But in 2022, recreational fishing in the Chesapeake Bay supported 15,500 jobs and generated $2 billion in economic impact.

It’s clear that the best way to protect menhaden for the entire bay is for Virginia to pause its harmful menhaden reduction fishery until sorely needed research can prove it’s sustainable.

Joyce Jones is a volunteer clean water captain with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. She lives in Cheverly.

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