Commercial & Recreational Fisheries

Schooling Atlantic menhaden. Photo ©ASMFC.

The Atlantic menhaden commercial fishery consists of a reduction fishery and a bait fishery. The reduction fishery, named because it processes the whole fish into fish meal, fish oil, and fish solubles, first began in New England during the early 1800s and spread south after the Civil War. The reduction fishery grew with the advent of purse seine after the Civil War in the mid-1800s. Purse seine landings reached a high point in the 1950s with peak landings of 712,100 metric tons (mt) in 1956 (Figure 1). At that time, over 20 menhaden reduction factories ranged from northern Florida to southern Maine. In the 1960s, the Atlantic menhaden stock contracted geographically, and many of the fish factories north of the Chesapeake Bay closed because of a scarcity of fish. Reduction landings dropped to a low of 161,000 mt in 1969. In the 1970s and 1980s, the menhaden population began to expand (primarily due to a series of above average year classes entering the fishery), and reduction landings rose to around 300,000-400,000 mt. Adult menhaden were again abundant in the northern half of their range and, as a result, reduction factories in New England and Canada began processing menhaden again by the mid-1970s. However, by 1989 all shore-side reduction plants in New England had closed, mainly because of odor abatement regulations.

During the 1990s, the Atlantic menhaden stock contracted again (as in the 1960s), largely due to a series of poor to average year classes. Over the next decade, several reduction plants consolidated or closed, resulting in a significant reduction in fleet size and fishing capacity. By 2005, there was only one remaining reduction plant in operation on the Atlantic coast processing menhaden into fishmeal and oil, which is located in Virginia and still operational today. The 2013 harvest of Atlantic menhaden for reduction was 131,034 mt, an 18% decrease from harvest in 2012 (160,627 mt) and 24% below average landings from 2010-2012 (172,600 mt). Seven purse-seine vessels landed Atlantic menhaden during the 2013 season. Most of the catch occurred in the waters off of Virginia and New Jersey.

The coastwide bait fishery supplies fishermen with bait for popular commercial (e.g., American lobster and blue crab) and sport fish (e.g., striped bass and bluefish), and has grown throughout its history along with the expansion of many fisheries that utilize menhaden as bait. Landings for bait have recently dipped due to the aforementioned reduction; levels for 2013 were 35,043 mt, 34% below the average landings during 2010-2012 (52,900 mt). However, in 2012, bait landings peaked at an all-time high of 63,540 mt. The bait fishery has increased in relative importance from North Carolina to New England. This is evident in the increasing percent of total menhaden landings that are attributed to the bait fishery. Between 2001 and 2012, the percent of total landings that were used for bait rose from 13% to a high of 28% in 2012. In 2013, bait harvest composed approximately 22% of the total menhaden harvest.  In recent years, the majority of bait landings have been harvested from Virginia and New Jersey waters, followed by Massachusetts and Maryland.