Omega Protein and its industry allies have released another lengthy attack on the Forage Fish Campaign and its executive director, Whit Fosburgh. Their strategy is familiar: challenge individual statements, dispute scientific findings, and distract from the fundamental problems with industrial reduction fishing.
Here are the facts that matter:
1. Striped bass recovery:
Industry claim: Eliminating all menhaden fishing would not, by itself, rebuild striped bass to their biomass target. Sustainable striped bass management is also necessary.
Fact: They’re right! What they don’t say, however, is that striped bass cannot rebuild if too many menhaden are removed from the water. The ASMFC’s own science says the striped bass population would grow 6% without menhaden fishing, adding 24 million lbs (approximately 2.5 million fish) to the population. That’s more striped bass than the total recreational and commercial fishing harvest combined!
Another study suggested 28.5% more striped bass without menhaden fishing, or 124M additional pounds (approximately 12.4 million fish)! (Buchheister et al., 2017).
And yes, of course, sustainable striped bass management is also required to rebuild the stock.
2. Menhaden stock status:
Industry claim: Menhaden are not overfished.
Fact: It is technically true that menhaden are not considered overfished under the current science, however the 2025 Menhaden Stock assessment determined that the menhaden stock is just 5% above its ecological overfishing threshold and 29% below the ecological target. In 2025 managers adopted a quota that had a zero percent chance of achieving the target that will allow striped bass to rebuild (when striped bass are fished sustainably, of course).
Further, a peer-reviewed paper published in September by University of Miami scientists concludes that the ASMFC’s “natural mortality” assumption, a key parameter in the stock assessment model, is substantially overestimated. The scientists’ estimate is consistent with the natural mortality estimate used by the ASMFC prior to 2020, and also more than a dozen other peer reviewed estimates. If the ASMFC adopts this rate of 0.5 (from the current 0.92), the stock would likely drop below the ecosystem threshold, and overfishing would be occurring.
The current ASMFC stock assessment still relies on a dangerously high rate of natural mortality that has misguided management since 2020. The rate is so high that, statistically speaking, the model effectively says that no menhaden lives beyond the age of 6, even though the menhaden’s life span is at least 11 years. The 2020 natural mortality rate was 14 standard deviations higher than any of the more than a dozen previous peer-reviewed estimates. Last year, the ASMFC was forced to correct some of the paper’s most egregious data errors, lowering the natural mortality rate by 20% (from 1.17 to 0.92) and, thus, the stock size by 37%. This change meant that to have a 50% chance of meeting the ecological targets, the quota needed to be cut from 233,000 mt to 108,000 mt. Instead, managers set the quota at 186,000 mt. That’s why there is a zero percent chance of meeting the ecological target.
The current natural mortality rate is still 8.8 standard deviations higher than previous estimates. You are roughly 5 billion times more likely to win the Powerball than to have a parameter that is this much of an outlier. The ASMFC must do better.
3. Foreign ownership and regulatory oversight:
Industry claim: Ocean Harvesters is an American company.
Fact: Omega Protein is 100% owned by Canadian fisheries conglomerate Cooke, Inc. In the Gulf, Daybrook Fisheries is 100% owned by the South African Oceana Group. Those are the only two companies that reduce menhaden in the US. Both Omega and Daybrook created American owned shell companies to get around the American Fisheries Act, which prohibits foreign ownership on US fishing vessels. Ocean Harvesters, Omega Protein’s fishing vessel subsidiary, is majority owned by the nephew of Glenn Cooke, the CEO of the company that bears his name. A recent lawsuit challenging this ownership arrangement was dismissed by a federal appeals court because it found that fish are not the property of the United States, not on the issue of foreign ownership. Whether their products are sold domestically or overseas does not change the central question: Why are American forage fish being converted into industrial feed ingredients instead of supporting American fisheries and coastal economies? By the way, the public would love to see exactly where all the menhaden that are being caught and reduced in US waters are used. Perhaps Omega Protein and Daybrook Fisheries would publish that data.
Finally, it is very telling that these foreign companies have created the American Small Pelagics Network to disguise who is really behind their attacks.
4. Osprey declines:
Industry claim: The study does not demonstrate that industrial fishing caused the observed [osprey] reproductive deficits.
Fact: Peer-reviewed research documents serious reproductive problems among Chesapeake Bay osprey. In fact, the seminal study from researchers at the Center for Conservation Biology at William & Mary is entitled “2026 osprey breeding performance was the worst ever recorded for the Chesapeake Bay.” Researchers are seeing similar declines in New Jersey, Rhode Island and Connecticut. All cite the lack of menhaden as a driving factor. Rather than dismissing these warning signs, managers should ensure sufficient forage fish remain available to support ecosystem needs.
5. Scientific assumptions:
Industry claim: Menhaden are not overfished and managers should follow the science.
Fact: The industry’s confidence in the existing menhaden assessment overlooks the troubling history of revisions to a key assumption (natural mortality) for estimating the population and determining how much fishing the population can sustain.
In 2019 the menhaden assessment underwent major revisions to its natural mortality estimate that significantly increased estimated biomass and, in turn, led to much higher allowable catch. In 2025 they corrected one set of mistakes in the inflated natural mortality estimate that lowered the estimated menhaden biomass by almost 40%. The new 2026 Ault and Luo research shows that there are additional mistakes in the estimated natural mortality that have not been corrected. The ASMFC needs to incorporate this new science immediately so that the menhaden population estimate can be corrected and appropriate new quotas can be set. The industry’s defense of the existing model is no substitute for testing it against new evidence.
6. Atlantic predator impacts:
Industry claim: The menhaden reduction industry does not significantly reduce striped bass and other predator populations.
Fact: The industry minimizes the consequences of industrial menhaden harvest for predator species, despite scientific evidence demonstrating that removing forage fish can have measurable effects throughout the food web.
Published ecological models demonstrate that menhaden harvest can reduce the abundance of valuable predator species, including striped bass and king mackerel. The precise magnitude is subject to scientific debate. The fundamental tradeoff is not: removing forage fish can leave less food available for predators. The best-case scenario science for industry is ASMFC science showing that the industry suppresses striped bass numbers by about 6%. This is the same amount as all recreational and commercial harvest combined.
7. Gulf ecosystem impacts:
Industry claim: While there may be “food web tradeoffs,” it does not establish that menhaden harvest causes declines in predators.
Fact: The industry’s focus on the commercial value of Gulf menhaden overlooks their essential ecological role in sustaining predator populations and the broader marine food web.
In the Gulf, concerns about ecosystem overfishing extend to the effects of industrial menhaden harvest on species such as red drum, king and Spanish mackerel and spotted seatrout, underscoring the need to manage forage fish for their ecological value, not simply their commercial yield. The most definitive science on the subject comes from NOAA scientist Jason Link’s 2021 paper “Evidence of Ecosystem Overfishing in US Large Marine Ecosystems”, which specifically shows that the industry has direct impacts on king mackerel, Spanish mackerel, red drum and many other species. And it does not even count bycatch. The issue is simple: the removal of large quantities of menhaden, about 3 billion fish each year, reduces prey availability for commercially and recreationally important species, raising questions about ecosystem impacts and the lack of adequate management.
8. Localized depletion:
Industry claim: Reports of menhaden in various places mean the stock is healthy.
Fact: The industry’s reliance on coastwide population estimates and anecdotes from certain places obscures a critical distinction: a healthy population on paper does not guarantee sufficient menhaden where predators need them most.
Even if the coastwide menhaden population were healthy, it does not mean that forage availability is adequate in the Chesapeake Bay or other important coastal habitats. Coastwide abundance and local availability are different questions. Fishermen and scientists have raised legitimate concerns about localized depletion that deserve investigation. And bait shop owners throughout the Mid-Atlantic are saying the same thing: bunker are missing, and when they can get them, they are juvenile fish.
9. Maryland juvenile survey
Industry claim: Maryland’s juvenile survey shows menhaden are abundant.
Fact: Juvenile menhaden in Maryland’s tributaries aren’t the adult fish that ospreys, striped bass and bait shops depend on. Young year classes only matter if they survive to spawn, and the reduction fleet catches huge numbers of young menhaden every year. Protect these fish now and menhaden, striped bass and osprey can all rebuild.
10. New York Bight
Industry claim: The fleet has barely fished the New York Bight this year, and its spotter planes haven’t found fishable menhaden to the north.
Fact: By Ocean Harvesters’ own account, its boats reached Ambrose Channel, the mouth of New York Harbor, this season, and its spotter planes routinely survey the migration. But that is a snapshot, not a forecast. Menhaden move south through the Bight in the fall, and captains reported tremendous numbers of bunker in New England this summer and expect them to arrive. An emergency closure is meant to be in place before the fish show up, not after. If the fleet has no plans to fish the Bight, a closure costs it nothing.
11. Quota reductions:
Industry claim: Reductions in allowable catch are evidence of conservation progress.
Fact: Reducing a quota on paper does not necessarily reduce actual harvest. The relevant question is how many additional menhaden remain in the water and whether fishing levels meet ecological management objectives. The industry’s preferred measure is the size of the allowable quota; ours is the amount of forage available to support healthy fisheries. When the ASMFC reduced the coastwide quota from 233,000 mt to 186,000 mt in 2025, it did not save a single fish in the water, as that was all the industry had been able to catch the previous year. This is a paper cut by the ASMFC, designed to mislead the public about what it was doing to conserve the resource.
12. Gulf bycatch:
Industry claim: Recreational fishermen, not industry bycatch, are the problem in the Gulf.
Fact: The industry’s efforts to dispute individual bycatch estimates do nothing to address the substantial number of non-target fish killed by industrial menhaden fishing in the Gulf.
The State of Louisiana conducted a study in 2024 of bycatch in the Gulf menhaden fishery. It found that about 150 million non-target fish are caught and killed in the fishery each year, including about 30,000 redfish. Whether a particular year’s estimate repeats annually is not the central issue. In fact, it’s likely that the bycatch is even worse most years when the captains do not have observers on board documenting bycatch. The bottom line is that the fishery kills substantial numbers of fish that support recreational and commercial fisheries, and those losses deserve stronger protections.
13. American jobs:
Industry claim: There is no data to support the claim that the recreational, bait and tackle, and small commercial sectors have had job losses.
Fact: The industry’s focus on jobs within its own operations presents a misleadingly narrow picture of the economic stakes, overlooking the far larger network of American businesses that depend on healthy coastal fisheries. We respect the men and women working in the reduction industry. But their jobs are not the only jobs that matter.
According to a 2016 economic study, the striped bass industry supported more than 100,000 jobs and generated more than $7 billion in economic benefits. The industry claims that it supports 519 jobs. Recreational fishing, bait businesses, charter boats, tackle shops, seafood businesses, and coastal tourism also depend on healthy fish populations. We would love the ASMFC to document these jobs; it’s curious that they have only chosen to look at the menhaden reduction industry jobs. Fisheries policy must consider the entire coastal economy, not simply the one company. And it is worth noting that every state along the Atlantic once had reduction plants. That practice has ended in every state except Virginia because the fishery was so destructive. Every other state managed that economic transition and so can Virginia.
The Question Industry Still Won’t Answer
Why should America’s public fisheries resources be managed primarily to benefit two foreign-owned industrial reduction companies rather than the much broader American fishing economy?
The Forage Fish Campaign believes American waters should support abundant fish, thriving coastal businesses, and future generations of fishermen.
The industry can keep attacking the messenger. We intend to protect the fish and the coastal communities that depend on healthy oceans.