Chesapeake Bay fish fight

Conservationists in Virginia worry that overfishing of menhaden is harming the Chesapeake Bay’s ecosystem. But state lawmakers have yet to approve funding to study the issue.

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

In Virginia, some little fish are at the center of a big, decadeslong fight. They’re called menhaden. Conservationists worry that overfishing is harming the ecosystem in the Chesapeake Bay. Industry says there’s no evidence of that, and scientists say they need more research to settle the debate. But as Katherine Hafner of station WHRO reports, state lawmakers would need to foot the bill.

(SOUNDBITE OF WATER GURGLING)

KATHERINE HAFNER, BYLINE: On a breezy afternoon, captain Chris Dollar steers his boat across the water in Gloucester, Va.

CHRIS DOLLAR: Quite pleasant right now.

HAFNER: Dollar owns a charter fishing business and has spent his whole life along the Chesapeake Bay, so he’s seen a lot of menhaden. He says they’re not the most glamorous fish.

DOLLAR: I wouldn’t call them ugly, but, you know, I wouldn’t call them, you know, poster children for the Chesapeake writ large.

HAFNER: But the menhaden has become a kind of poster child for the Chesapeake Bay. The small silver fish are a crucial part of the base ecosystem. They’re a key food source for everything from ospreys to bigger fish, like striped bass, that local sport fishers treasure. Now, Dollar and others worry menhaden are at risk of disappearing. He says he sees drastically fewer fish than he used to.

DOLLAR: The density of the schools where it might be, you know, size of a football field is now just maybe a tennis court, and you see those smaller and smaller numbers.

HAFNER: Sport fishing and conservation groups pin the blame on one company, Omega Protein. It’s the last player from an industry that once spanned the East Coast harvesting menhaden from Maine to Florida. Virginia is the last place on the Atlantic that allows this type of fishing, which turns millions…