(The Center Square) – A group of anglers got President Donald Trump’s attention in a long-running campaign to protect a lesser-known forage fish in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association posted a 4-minute video on YouTube that blames a reduction in menhaden in the bay on the Canadian company Cooke Seafood. A letter posted along with the video calls on Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to stop Cooke Seafood from removing menhaden from the Chesapeake Bay and other Virginia waters.
“Foreign companies profit off of industrial fishing for U.S. forage fish (aka bait fish) undermining American businesses and workers,” the group wrote in a Change.org petition. “By taking bold action to end industrial scale fishing for vulnerable bait fish, America can harness the full economic potential of our fisheries, create jobs, and secure a sustainable future for America’s fishing industry and coastal communities.”
The company involved in the menhaden operation, Ocean Harvesters, disputed the allegations in the video.
“Ocean Harvesters continues a long and proud tradition of menhaden fishing in Virginia’s Northern Neck region, where menhaden fishermen have operated continuously for over 145 years,” the company said in a statement. “Ocean Harvesters vessels are crewed primarily by American fishermen, many of whom are multi-generational, holding the same jobs as their fathers and grandfathers. The fishery employs hundreds of local workers directly, and hundreds more indirectly, and has long been one of the best sources of good-paying jobs in the region.”
The video casts the conflict as a battle between local anglers and a giant Canadian-owned conglomerate illegally fishing in U.S. waters. A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Cooke, Ocean Fleet Services and others in January.
The allegations started years after Cooke Inc., a New Brunswick company and parent of Cooke Aquaculture Inc., bought Omega Protein Corporation, which makes specialty oils and specialty protein products, for $500 million in 2017.
Two people sued Cooke, Omega Protein, Ocean Fleet Services, Ocean Harvesters and others in 2021 under the False Claims Act, alleging the companies falsely structured the acquisition and defrauded the government when they obtained U.S. fishing permits.
Ocean Harvesters said it abides by all U.S. laws.
“As required by U.S. law, all menhaden fishing is conducted by U.S.-owned fishing companies, and vessels are crewed primarily by American fishermen. Ocean Harvesters is an American company headquartered in Reedville, Virginia. It has additional operations in Abbeville, Louisiana and Moss Point, Mississippi.
Some of the defendants, including Ocean Fleet Services, wrote in a motion to dismiss that “stripped of the hyperbolic innuendo, this is a case about entities engaging in a routine business transaction, with the express authorization of a fully informed industry regulator, involving the purchase of fish processing facilities and the sale of fishing vessels.”
“The net result of the transaction, which is a U.S. citizen-owned fleet entering into an agreement to sell its catch to a foreign-owned processor, is expressly permitted under federal law,” defendant’s wrote in the motion to dismiss.
A judge dismissed that suit in January, ruling that neither fish nor a fishing license met the definition of property under the False Claims Act.
The complainants have since appealed that ruling, alleging, among other things, that defendants violated the American Fisheries Act’s citizenship requirement, which requires U.S. commercial fishing vessels to be owned and controlled by U.S. citizens.
A decision on the appeal is pending. A group of law professors wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief in the appeal that “the district court’s decision fails to recognize the substantial property rights States and the Federal Government historically had and today still have in wildlife in their lands and waters,” according to court records. That brief further argued that the “district court’s denial of those substantial property rights overlooks two hundred years of American history and weakens Federal and State protections of our Nation’s natural resources.”
Cooke Seafood told The Center Square it doesn’t own or operate the menhaden operation. Cooke directed comment to Ocean Fleet Services. Ocean Harvesters said it has a long-term supply contract with Cooke.
“Ocean Harvesters does have a long-term supply contract with Omega Protein, which, while owned by Canada-based Cooke Inc., is also headquartered in Reedville and operates exclusively in the U.S. Omega Protein purchases the menhaden caught by Ocean Harvesters and processes it into fish meal and fish oil for use in aquaculture, health supplements, and healthy food for pets,” the company said.
The Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association succeeded outside the court in getting Trump to post its video on his Truth Social platform. Trump’s post didn’t include any comment.
Conservatives for Fair Fishing, a group focused on the issues, wrote in a recent blog post that Trump should stop the practices highlighted in the video.
“The plundering of menhaden in U.S. waters only scratches the surface of foreign control over the American seafood industry. While menhaden serves as bait, other foreign conglomerates command tremendous control over the U.S. food supply,” the group wrote in a blog post.
FULL STATEMENT FROM OCEAN HARVESTERS:
A recent video that has been widely shared on social media repeats many false claims about the Atlantic and Gulf menhaden fisheries. Most notably, it recirculates claims about foreign ownership of the fisheries and the sustainability of menhaden that have been repeatedly debunked. The video also ignores the fact that Atlantic and Gulf menhaden fisheries are tightly regulated, responsibly managed and a source of good-paying jobs for hundreds of rural American fishermen and seafood workers.
At several points the video makes claims about “Canadian exploitation of U.S. natural resources” and fisheries “being pillaged by foreigners”—claims that ignore how the fishery actually operates and wrong about the companies that fish for menhaden. As required by U.S. law, all menhaden fishing is conducted by U.S.-owned fishing companies, and vessels are crewed primarily by American fishermen. Ocean Harvesters is an American company headquartered in Reedville, Virginia, with additional operations in Abbeville, Louisiana and Moss Point, Mississippi.
Ocean Harvesters continues a long and proud tradition of menhaden fishing in Virginia’s Northern Neck region, where menhaden fishermen have operated continuously for over 145 years. Ocean Harvesters vessels are crewed primarily by American fishermen, many of whom are multi-generational, holding the same jobs as their fathers and grandfathers. The fishery employs hundreds of local workers directly, and hundreds more indirectly, and has long been one of the best sources of good-paying jobs in the region.
Virginia holds the majority of the menhaden quota due to the post-Civil War migration of New England fishery operations to Reedville, where economic opportunity, access to abundant fish stocks, and a favorable climate for year-round processing led to the concentration of the reduction industry. Families and companies from the North moved south, establishing plants and infrastructure that anchored the fishery in the region. Over time, Reedville evolved into the national center of the menhaden reduction fishery, building a deeply rooted local economy around this industry. This type of concentration of quota is similar to how the majority of permitted lobster fishing effort is concentrated in Maine and Massachusetts.
Menhaden bait fishing occurs across the East Coast using the same gear—like purse seines—but only Virginia allows the catch to be processed into marine ingredients such as omega-3 oil and fish meal. Other states permit menhaden harvest for bait, which is used in Maine and Massachusetts’ lobster fisheries and Maryland’s crab fishery, among others. Despite identical fishing methods, these states ban the reduction fishery—a rare regulatory approach that targets end use rather than gear or harvest limits. Much of the bait doesn’t stay local, supplying fisheries as far as Alaska’s Bering Strait and crawfish farms across the Gulf of America.
While the video claims to want to “put America first,” it actually advocates against American fishermen and their communities by falsely attacking a fishery that is critical to rural America.
Ocean Harvesters does have a long-term supply contract with Omega Protein, which, while owned by Canada-based Cooke, Inc., is also headquartered in Reedville and operates exclusively in the U.S. Omega Protein purchases the menhaden caught by Ocean Harvesters and processes it into fish meal and fish oil for use in aquaculture, health supplements, and healthy food for pets.
The video badly misrepresents the current state of the menhaden population and the impact of the fishery on other species. While the video refers to the “pillaging of menhaden” by the fishery and claims that it “crushes” other fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay, this is not supported by any available science. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), the interstate body that manages menhaden, has repeatedly found that the species is not overfished and that overfishing is not occurring—most recently confirming this finding in its 2022 stock assessment. The Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission (GSMFC) similarly found in 2024 that Gulf menhaden is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring.
The sustainability of the Atlantic and Gulf menhaden fisheries has been internationally recognized as well. Since 2019, both fisheries have been certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the most rigorous and widely recognized seafood sustainability label in the world.
The video is also deceiving and flatly wrong about how the menhaden fishery affects the ecosystem, claiming that “striped bass are the ones that are most impacted by a reduction in menhaden,” and that there are “no croaker in the Bay, no trout in the Bay, crab populations are down,” because of the fishery. There is no available scientific data that supports these conclusions. Striped bass, unlike menhaden, are currently considered to be overfished by the ASMFC, and are in the middle of a rebuilding plan. Overharvest by recreational fishermen is by far the single most important factor affecting the striped bass population. There is no evidence that a lack of access to prey is responsible for the current overfished status of striped bass.
Croaker and trout have not been identified by the ASMFC as relying significantly on menhaden for food. Crabs do not eat menhaden at all, and in fact the food web relationship between the two species is the opposite: menhaden regularly feed on crab larvae.
Mentioning these species as negatively affected by menhaden fishing demonstrates a misunderstanding of Bay food web dynamics.
Atlantic menhaden are managed specifically to take into account the needs of predator species like striped bass. The system, known as Ecological Reference Points, sets the coastwide menhaden quota not just with the menhaden fishery in mind, but also to ensure there are enough menhaden left in the water to serve as a food source for predators. They were developed through a rigorous, multi-year process led by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) in partnership with NOAA and other scientific bodies, and represent the most up-to-date science understanding predator-prey relationships on the Atlantic coast. This makes the menhaden quota inherently conservative, and contradicts the picture of an unrestricted fishery made by the video.
The video is misleading about the menhaden fishery’s impact on the Bay overall, criticizing the fishery by stating that “51,000 metric tons or 112,000,000 lbs. of menhaden [are] removed from the Bay every year.” But the current cap on menhaden harvests in the Chesapeake Bay is based not on science but on politics. The ASMFC originally implemented the Bay cap in 2006 at just over 109,000 metric tons (mt) as part of a political compromise—not due to any scientific finding or ecological necessity. In fact, the ASMFC clearly stated at the time that the cap was “precautionary and not based on a scientifically quantified harvest threshold, fishery health index, or fishery population level study.”
Despite this lack of scientific foundation, the cap has since been reduced to 51,000 mt, a figure that does not reflect historical harvest levels or the established norms of U.S. fisheries management. In nearly all federally managed fisheries, harvest allocations are based on historic landings, not arbitrary political negotiations. Under that standard,
Virginia would have been allocated at least two-thirds more than the current cap.
It’s also critical to recognize that the current harvest level is a fraction of what it used to be. From 1955 to 2010, the average annual harvest of menhaden from the Chesapeake Bay was 112,000 mt, and in some years reached as high as 170,000 mt. Today’s cap of 51,000 mt is less than half that long-term average, making clear that the industry is already operating at dramatically reduced levels—despite a lack of scientific evidence that such reductions are necessary.
If we truly want to “put America first,” we should be supporting the hardworking Virginians, Louisianans, and Mississippians who comprise the Atlantic and Gulf menhaden fisheries, not attacking them. This American industry has thrived for over 145 years thanks to the efforts of fishermen, scientists, and fishery managers. With strong collaboration, it can continue to thrive for the next 145 years to come.
