ASMFC Nixes Steep Menhaden Catch Cuts

Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Project, Marine Fisheries Board Declines to Make Science-Based Reduction to Atlantic Menhaden Catch Limit  

Despite a 2025 stock assessment indicating that Atlantic menhaden biomass is one-third lower than previously estimated – and an immediate need to cut the coastwide menhaden quota by more than 50 percent to support striped bass rebuilding – the Menhaden Management Board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted today to reduce 2026 commercial catch by only 20 percent. The decision, which will likely prevent striped bass and other predators largely reliant on menhaden like bluefish, weakfish, spiny dogfish, and ospreys from having sufficient forage, was a disappointment for conservation and recreational angling organizations.

 

“Rebuilding the Atlantic striped bass population has always involved more than just regulating striped bass harvest. It’s also about ensuring that enough of their key food source, Atlantic menhaden, remains available in the water,” said Chris Macaluso, director of the Center for Fisheries for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “The Menhaden Management Board’s decision to adopt only a 20 percent reduction in menhaden harvest, despite the science and input from ASMFC’s own scientists who highlighted the risks, makes it more challenging to achieve striped bass recovery by 2029. This step falls short of fully advancing more than a decade of progress toward ecosystem-based management and undermines public trust in the process.”

 

The Board’s decision, made at the agency’s annual meeting in Delaware, ignores its own
management framework based on “ecological reference points” (ERPs) — clear, science-based limits that tie menhaden harvest directly to predator health – and new estimates that show there are 37 percent fewer menhaden off the Atlantic coast than previously estimated. The Board also declined to vote for additional coastwide menhaden quota reductions beyond the 2026 fishing season, dodging additional quota cuts for 2027 and 2028 that could have collectively reached an ERP-based reduction that the recreational angling community called for after three years. The Board instead favored revisiting the issue in 2026 to determine if additional reductions are needed.

 

Notably, three years ago the Menhaden Management Board voted to increase the Atlantic menhaden total allowable catch for the 2023-2025 fishing seasons when the best available science indicated it was warranted. However, now that the best science indicates a reduction in catch is needed, the board has declined to reduce the catch to align with the ecosystem-based management model.

In early October, the ASMFC released its 2025 Atlantic menhaden stock assessment update, which indicated that the coastwide menhaden biomass is lower than previously estimated and suggested that slashing the coastwide catch limit by more than half would be necessary to ensure sufficient forage for rebuilding populations of striped bass. The Board’s decision today is not expected to achieve the standard 50/50 probability of not exceeding the ERP fishing mortality target – the precautionary approach that would dictate risk-tolerant, science-based management – and instead results in a 100 percent chance of exceeding the target in 2026.

The source is clearly biased in favor of cutting the Menhaden harvest, but then, so am I. But the point, that the new data show Menhaden population is 37% lower than previously thought, but the ASMFC responded by attempting to cut the harvest by only 20% suggests that they are not acting in the best interest of the Menhaden, let alone the Striped Bass and other predators that eat them. 

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Barbara Eden up and garnering clicks at The Other McCain.