Economic Impacts
Healthy menhaden support Virginia’s coastal economy
The Chesapeake Bay supports thousands of jobs across Virginia in commercial fishing, recreational fishing, charter businesses, tourism, hospitality, and small businesses that depend on healthy waters and abundant fish.
Menhaden play a quiet but critical role in this economy. As the primary food source for striped bass and other sportfish, they help sustain the fisheries that draw anglers, tourists, and revenue to coastal communities.
When menhaden are extracted at industrial levels from Chesapeake Bay, the economic effects ripple outward. By stressing the menhaden in the Bay, we risk outsized economic impacts across Bay businesses and working waterfronts.
Why Menhaden Matter
Jobs beyond one industry
Factory fishing, with its operations based in Reedville, supports approximately 270 jobs across Virginia’s Northern Neck. But healthy menhaden populations support thousands more jobs across the Bay economy, from smaller commercial fishing operations and charter captains to restaurants, hotels, bait suppliers, tackle shops, and tourism workers.
The economic impacts
are already visible
Small-scale fishermen face collapsing catches. Virginia watermen report menhaden catches down over 70%, threatening livelihoods passed down through generations. These menhaden fishermen provide the critical bait source for our Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab fisheries, who have reported challenges procuring affordable bait sources with the diminished menhaden catches in the Bay.
Fewer fish for fishermen means a massive ripple effect throughout coastal Virginia. When sportfish populations struggle, recreational anglers take fewer trips, which directly affects waterfront restaurants, hotels, and tourism-dependent businesses.
The real economic question is how many jobs will remain if the Bay’s ecosystem collapses under the pressure of industrial extraction. What happens to the town of Reedville or the menhaden workers if there aren’t enough menhaden left to catch?
A risky economic bet
Removing over 100 million pounds of menhaden annually from a stressed Chesapeake Bay is a short-term profit with long-term costs. Climate change, pollution, and habitat loss are already putting pressure on the Bay. Continued factory fishing inside the Bay’s menhaden nursery increases the risk of economic disruption across multiple industries, including the reduction industry.
Other Atlantic states recognized this risk decades ago. Most banned reduction fishing from state waters to protect coastal economies and allow nearshore fisheries to thrive. Yet the menhaden reduction industry has successfully influenced Virginia to maintain their status-quo and prevent meaningful actions to protect menhaden, leaving all workers and communities at risk.
A smarter economic choice
Protecting menhaden in Chesapeake Bay is about economic stability, not sacrifice. A precautionary, science-based approach to menhaden management would:
- Permit the reduction industry to harvest menhaden in the ocean, where the industry already regularly operates and there is adequate science.
- Protect long-term jobs across industries that depend on a healthy Bay. Conserving menhaden and their nursery areas helps sustain populations, supporting the livelihoods of menhaden workers in Reedville and communities throughout the commonwealth.
- Support small businesses and working waterfronts throughout Virginia’s coastal communities.
- Reduce economic risk in a changing climate by maintaining the resilience of the Chesapeake Bay’s food web.
- Ensure Virginia remains competitive with other Atlantic states that have already banned industrial menhaden extraction.