So obviously, Donald Trump is not pro-environment. To the contrary, he’s one of the most viciously ANTI-environment/pro-polluter/pro-corporate presidents in U.S. history. Which is one reason why it was jarring to see him share the following video on his “Truth Social”:
In short, this video asks:
“What do you think would happen if we did not have 51,000 metric tons, or 112 million pounds, of Menhaden removed from the Bay every year?”
What the video fargues is that the “pillaging of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay” is leading to “no croaker in the Bay, no trout in the Bay, crab populations are down, you name it,” and that it’s all “to the benefit of the Canadians.” The video further argues that only two states (one of which is Virginia) are allowing this, and they’re “being pillaged by foreigners,” that the “scale of their operation is enormous; the impact they’ve had is unbelievable…” The video further explains that menhaden are considered “the most important fish in the sea,” because it “feeds all the other fish – striped bass, bluefish, trout, cobia, red drum – mammals, dolphins, porpoise, whales, as well as seabirds.”
Sounds terrible, right? Well, despite the fact that anti-environment Donald Trump shared the video, overfishing of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay actually IS terrible environmentally and economically. It’s also got to be infuriating for those who make a living in the Bay to see a corporation, let alone one that’s not even based in the US, take such an important species and grind it into ingredients for dog food and makeup… and the profits go outside the community – to another country, in fact. But first, here’s a brief overview as to why the overfishing of menhaden an environmental disaster:
- As this article explains: “The osprey population on the Eastern Shore has dropped to just 18 birds, and scientists at Williams & Mary’s Center for Conservation Biology say it’s a sign of an ‘early complete collapse’ of the species.” And why is that the case? Pretty simply, this: “Areas where ospreys relied on menhaden as a primary food source saw the biggest deficits in reproductive rates. Areas where catfish and gizzard shad were the main source of food had sustainable osprey populations.” So yeah, “the likely cause is the decline of the fish that ospreys eat” – that fish being menhaden, which is being massively overfished in the Virginia part of the Chesapeake Bay.
- As the Chesapeake Bay Foundation explains: “Atlantic menhaden, Brevoortia tyrannus, are small, nutrient-packed fish that are central to the Chesapeake Bay’s food chain and support one of the largest commercial fisheries on the Atlantic coast...Menhaden, also called bunker or pogy, create a vital connection between the bottom, middle, and top of the food chain. They eat tiny plants and animals, called plankton, by filtering them from the water. In turn, menhaden are a rich food source for many predator fish—including rockfish (striped bass), bluefish, red drum, bluefin tuna, and weakfish—as well as ospreys, bald eagles, dolphins, and whales… the number of young menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay dropped dramatically in the early 1990s and has remained well below the long-term average for the past 20 years…almost three-quarters of all menhaden caught on the East Coast are harvested by the Omega Protein Corporation—a Canadian-owned company that fishes in Virginia waters in or near the mouth of the Bay. Virginia is the only state to still allow industrial-scale menhaden fishing on the U.S. East Coast. Omega Protein’s plant in Reedville, Virginia reduces (cooks and grinds up) the fish for a variety of uses, such as fish food for large-scale salmon farming, nutritional supplements, makeup, and food additives.”
Sounds pretty messed up, right? Because yes, it really is. And you might be wondering, if this is so bad, what have Virginia’s leaders been doing about it? As the following overview explains, actually Ralph Northam did a LOT – or tried to do a LOT:
“In 2019, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam called for a moratorium on menhaden fishing in Virginia waters due to Omega Protein exceeding the established harvest cap. This led to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) finding Virginia out of compliance and the U.S. Commerce Department threatening a moratorium if the state didn’t take action. Subsequently, Virginia lawmakers transferred management of the menhaden fishery to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC), aiming for science-based management and to address the non-compliance issues.”
So that’s good at least. Unfortunately, it hasn’t solved the problem at all, with osprey populations collapsing, declines of other species (as noted above), menhaden continuing to be overfished, etc. There are a lot of reasons for that, but the bottom line is we need serious leadership on this issue, hopefully with our next governor (Abigail Spanberger, definitely not Winsome Earle-Sears). And, perversely, could it be possible that the Trump administration might end up doing the right thing (e.g., seriously restrict menhaden fishing in the Bay) for their own particular reasons (e.g., Trump’s sons love sports fishing, and sports fishing is harmed by the decimation of menhaden in the Bay)?
We’ll see, but changes do appear to be coming, one way or the other, whether from the Trump administration or a new gubernatorial administration putting its own people – hopefully people who make decisions based on science, as well as what’s best for the environment and the Bay-area economy – on the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. And, of course, it would be great if the public had a stronger understanding of the importance of this super-important species, menhaden, and how it’s being decimated by a corporation…
BTW, the fact that this company is “foreign” is probably a huge issue for Trump, but if it were a U.S. company strip-mining the Bay, would it be much better? Because at the present time, if you asked most people in Virginia about menhaden, most likely they wouldn’t be particularly familiar with the fish or the issues around it. Which, in turn, means that politically speaking, there’s not much pressure on politicians to actually help improve the situation? There are also countervailing pressures, given that there are fishing jobs – mostly very low paying (with the vast majority of profits going to the corporations that employ them), but still, they’re jobs – tied to menhaden. So it all has to be worked out, equitably, but it really DOES need to be worked out, because the current situation is really not tenable…
P.S. According to this article (from back in January, so not sure if views have changed at all since then), “Republican Winsome Earle-Sears has not responded to requests by WFXR for her position on the menhaden study bill” (because of course she hasn’t! LOL) and “Democrat Abigail Spanberger has not committed supporting this bill in particular, but she says she is in favor of the idea of finding out more about menhaden numbers and how various environmental and industrial factors play into their status.”
