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Workgroup Established to Consider Chesapeake Bay Menhaden Regulations
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission workgroup will eye precautionary, Bay-specific menhaden fishery management measures to protect predators like ospreys and striped bass
The Menhaden Management Board (MMB) of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted yesterday to establish a workgroup to consider options for precautionary management of the Chesapeake Bay industrial menhaden fishery, including time and area closures, to account for seabird and fish diet needs at critical points in their life cycles. The workgroup will be organized over the coming weeks and will start the process of thinking through what future management measures for the Bay menhaden fishery might look like, to lower the pressure that ospreys and other menhaden predators are facing in one of America’s most important estuaries.
Menhaden are baitfish that play an essential role in marine food webs, providing a vital food source for not only ospreys, but many larger species like striped bass, redfish, whales, dolphins, and seabirds.
The motion to establish a workgroup, which was unanimously supported by the MMB, was put forward by the Maryland ASMFC delegation’s Allison Colden, who is also Maryland executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The group should begin to answer some of the questions that conservation groups have had for years about the menhaden fishery’s impact on the Bay ecosystem, and will propose potential sustainable solutions for the ASMFC to deliberate.
“We’re seeing some major ecological red flags in the Chesapeake Bay,” said Allison Colden, CBF Maryland executive director. “From struggling osprey populations to dismal menhaden bait landings, it’s clear that additional precautions are needed.”
Chesapeake Bay residents and scientists have been sounding the alarm about a lack of menhaden in the Bay leading to lower osprey chick-rearing success. This led to the MMB inviting the U.S. Geological Survey to make a presentation on Aug. 6 to inform the Board about the status of osprey in the Chesapeake Bay, and the problems these birds of prey are currently facing. Data shows that ospreys in some parts of the Bay are particularly reliant on oil-rich menhaden as food for their young, especially in the spring and summer months during chick-rearing season when male ospreys must bring in extra food to feed their mate and offspring. In recent years, the numbers have shown that ospreys in parts of the Bay are unsuccessful in raising enough young each year to sustain stable long-term populations, due in part to a lack of food availability for young chicks.
While the Atlantic menhaden fishery is already managed to account for the diet needs of multiple fish predators, such as striped bass and bluefish, to leave enough forage in the water for those fish to eat, osprey are not explicitly included in that management structure despite their clear reliance on menhaden in their diets. Updated stock assessments will be published in fall 2025, which will essentially model how menhaden have been interacting with the Atlantic ecosystem in recent years, and will help managers set appropriate harvest quotas in future fishing seasons. Unfortunately, those assessment calculations are not detailed enough to determine how the menhaden fishery is impacting the ecosystem in specific zones, such as within the Chesapeake Bay region, where harvest is concentrated.
“Setting specific regulations tailored to regional differences in harvest, based on what we know now, is a way to manage the menhaden fishery in a precautionary manner until the stock assessment science can catch up,” said Jaclyn Higgins, forage fish program manager for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “We have a wide range of longstanding seabird data that has been collected for decades, which shows us the ebb and flow of osprey populations along the Atlantic. We know that osprey chicks aren’t getting enough to eat in the Chesapeake, and we know they are reliant on menhaden in that important chick-rearing timeframe.”
Higgins says that establishing regulations that leave more menhaden in the water in the Bay at critical times, based on osprey needs and the needs of other Bay predators, is an ideal way to expand upon the ecosystem-based management framework that the ASMFC already uses to manage this iconic forage fish.
“The TRCP is excited to support this movement towards further refining the ecosystem-based management of the Atlantic menhaden fishery,” Higgins said. “Refining the spatial components of the ASMFC’s menhaden management structure will further improve the sustainability of this fishery, and will allow for more predators to have sufficient access to this critical forage species into the future.”
The workgroup expects to present their findings to the MMB at its October 2024 meeting.
For more information about the key role menhaden and other forage fish play in marine ecosystems, visit TRCP’s forage fish recovery page.
Banner image of osprey with menhaden courtesy Chesapeake Bay Program
Joel Pedersen Named President and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
Pedersen brings over 30 years of leadership experience to the largest coalition of conservation organizations in the country.
The board of directors of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) is pleased to announce the appointment of Joel Pedersen as President and CEO. Pedersen is a proven leader in conservation mission delivery, legislative strategy, and nonprofit governance with more than 30 years of experience; he will begin the role on September 1.
“Joel is a proven coalition builder and an inspiring leader who made a lasting impression on the board with his deep knowledge of conservation policy, passion for the American model of conservation, and well-earned respect within the conservation community,” said Alston Watt, chair of the TRCP Board of Directors. “On behalf of the board, I am thrilled to welcome Joel Pedersen as the next president and CEO of TRCP. Our partnership model is the driving force for conservation in America and we have no doubt he will continue advancing America’s legacy of conservation, habitat, and access.”
In his most recent role as president and CEO of the Mule Deer Foundation, Pedersen advanced the nonprofit’s legislative and administrative priorities, increased membership, and revenue, and expanded partnerships with state and federal agencies.
Pedersen’s professional background includes biological administration, hunting access program management, conservation planning, and federal and state legislative strategy. He has served in leadership positions at the National Wild Turkey Federation and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and holds degrees in biology and wildlife and fisheries science. He is also a fellow of the National Conservation Leadership Institute.
“I have worked alongside TRCP for many years and have always admired its mission, reputation, and lasting accomplishments,” said Pedersen. “I am humbled and honored to now have the opportunity to lead the organization into the future. I look forward to working with the excellent staff and board at TRCP to advance Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation legacy, and am excited to learn from, and continue to foster strong relationships with our partners as we lean into challenging conservation issues of the day. We are stronger with a unified voice, and it will take all of us working together to ensure a bright future for hunting and fishing.”
TRCP continues to rise to the challenge originally set forth by its founder, Jim Range—to unite and amplify partners’ voices to advance America’s legacy of conservation, habitat, and access. Since its inception just over 20 years ago, TRCP has become the largest coalition of conservation organizations in the country, representing over 90 partner nonprofit and corporate organizations.
“It is my pleasure to turn over the reins to Joel Pedersen, as the new President and CEO of TRCP,” said Becky Humphries, TRCP interim CEO and board member. “I have worked alongside Joel and know well he is a proven leader and conservation champion whose vision will expand and strengthen TRCP’s work creating durable science-based, common-sense conservation solutions that guarantee all Americans quality places to hunt and fish.”
Founded in 2002, the TRCP is the largest coalition of conservation organizations in the country, uniting and amplifying the voices of sportsmen and women by convening hunting and fishing groups, conservation organizations, and outdoor businesses to a common purpose. Learn more at trcp.org.
The TRCP is your resource for all things conservation. In our weekly Roosevelt Report, you’ll receive the latest news on emerging habitat threats, legislation and proposals on the move, public land and waters access solutions we’re spearheading, and opportunities for hunters and anglers to take action. Sign up now.
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership Welcomes Four New Board Members
Experts in conservation, finance, and operations join leadership team.
(Washington D.C.)—The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is pleased to announce the onboarding of four new directors to its leadership team. Joe Anderson, Bill Henagan, Rita Hite, and Andrew Martin join the 27-member board that oversees TRCP.
“We are thrilled to welcome these four individuals to our Board of Directors,” says Alston Watt, TRCP Board Chair. “The diverse set of experience they have continues to build upon our strength as an organization and helps us to achieve our mission of guaranteeing all Americans quality places to hunt and fish. They each truly understand the importance of TRCP’s work to have lasting impacts to conservation, habitat, and access.”
Bios for the incoming board members can be found below. To read more about TRCP’s full Board of Directors and leadership team, click HERE.
Joe Anderson
A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Joe and the infantry platoon he commanded in Vietnam were subjects of the highly acclaimed documentary film “The Anderson Platoon” which has won several awards to include the Oscar of the Academy Awards and an Emmy. Mr. Anderson’s military awards include two silver stars, five bronze stars, three Army Commendation Medals and eleven Air Medals.
Joe also serves on boards of several public and private companies. He is a past chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago-Detroit Branch as well as a past chairman of the U.S. Department of Commerce Manufacturing Council.
Joe started fishing as a child with his dad in Topeka, Kansas. They raised English Pointers and hunted pheasant and quail throughout the state. He currently lives in Michigan and continues as an avid wing shooter hunting birds throughout the United States and Canada. He also fishes for salmon and halibut in Alaska.
Bill Henagan
Like his outdoor adventures, Bill’s professional interests stay broad and varied. As a young engineer for Texas Instruments, he manufactured DoD guidance systems, then spent the next fifteen years pioneering “Big Change Fast” for the Fortune 1000 in the emerging Systems Integration industry with CSC/Index and Deloitte. Over the past 20 years he has sought to provide thoughtful advice and private equity to positively impact family owned, southeastern companies as Managing Director of Henagan Spencer Capital Partners. In both the for-profit and non-profit worlds, Bill works to harness collective wisdom and ambition to solve complex governance challenges.
Complementing his investment portfolio, Bill stays deeply committed to actively giving back to his community on boards such as Visiting Nurse Health System, Breakthrough Atlanta, The Lovett School and The Rotary Club of Atlanta.
Bill and his wife Babette enjoy traveling to hunt and fish and have consistently support worthy conservation organizations. Along with their grand puppy, Boone the Bloodhound, they call Atlanta and the Low Country of South Carolina home and are blessed with two, fully grown, gainfully employed sons, William and Darby.
Rita Hite
As president and CEO of the American Forest Foundation, Rita Hite leads the foundation’s ambitious conservation agenda. Her work centers on scaling AFF’s efforts to empower family forest owners from all walks of life to address the most pressing conservation challenges facing our nation today: namely, increasing carbon storage, mitigating catastrophic wildfires, and improving fish and wildlife habitat.
In her more than 20-year career in forest conservation, Rita has staffed congressional leaders on the House Committee on Agriculture, built and curated coalitions and partnerships including the Forest Climate Working Group, the Forests in the Farm Bill Coalition and the Women’s Forest Congress, and served as a nonprofit leader. She has shaped strategy, programs, and public policies that have unlocked billions in support for family forest stewardship and have had a significant impact on climate change, wildfire resilience and forest sustainability across the United States. She finds energy in tackling difficult conservation challenges and bringing together diverse teams, coalitions and resources to create market-relevant solutions.
Rita is a graduate of SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She felt the call to champion natural resource conservation having grown up on a beef cattle farm in Upstate New York, where hunting and fishing were a natural part of life.
When not working, she’s likely chasing her five-year-old son, BBQing with her husband Matt, tending to her garden, or snuggling with her dogs at her home in Alexandria, Virginia. While she’d call herself an amateur, she enjoys fishing today with her husband and son when they can get away in nature.
Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin has been an advisor to and advocate and enthusiast of the sporting world for over 25 years. He co-founded Baird’s Enthusiast Brands in 2009 and leads the firm’s global coverage efforts across the outdoor industry, inclusive of work in the hunting, shooting sports and fishing segments. Andrew has had the good fortune to advise corporate leaders in the sporting world, iconic brands and the industry’s premier growth platforms. He and Baird have also been and are committed supporters to other organizations such as the Outdoor Foundation and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation.
Andrew Martin has been an advisor to and advocate and enthusiast of the sporting world for over 25 years. He co-founded Baird’s Enthusiast Brands in 2009 and leads the firm’s global coverage efforts across the outdoor industry, inclusive of work in the hunting, shooting sports and fishing segments. Andrew has had the good fortune to advise corporate leaders in the sporting world, iconic brands and the industry’s premier growth platforms. He and Baird have also been and are committed supporters to other organizations such as the Outdoor Foundation and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation.
Andrew holds an undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University and an MBA from Duke University. An avid outdoorsman himself, Andrew enjoys spending time with friends and family both close to home in the Carolinas and the Blue Ridge Mountains, as well as at sporting destinations far afield.
Meet the Team: TRCP Staff and Board Members unite and amplify our partners voices to advance America’s legacy of conservation, habitat, and access.
Capt. Steve Huff Talks Fishing, Conservation, & Clean Water
Anyone who knows Huff knows he tells it like it is. He was gracious enough to share some thoughts on South Florida fishing and Everglades restoration with the rest of us.
Those who know South Florida fishing know of Captain Steve Huff, who has been called the “best fishing guide alive.” Huff is a humble man, though, and quickly dismisses that reference. He doesn’t frequent fishing expos, or post on social media, or star in television shows. But for decades, he’s been out on the water. He simply heads out at dawn each day, poles his boat with practiced grit, and makes damn sure his clients catch memorable fish – even now in his so-called retirement. He’s fished professionally from the Lower Keys up through Florida Bay and the southern reaches of the Everglades, including Ten Thousand Islands. TRCP asked Huff about his thoughts on South Florida fishing, Everglades restoration, and the importance of clean water. We’ve chosen to simply share excerpts of his own words on issues, rather than couch them in our own.
(Warning: Some people may find the language in this post offensive.)
I started guiding 56 years ago in the Keys, and the target species at that time were, for me at least, bonefish, tarpon, and permit. Snook were very available in the Flamingo area on the north side of Florida Bay, and around the bridges in the Keys. I guided some people to numerous world records for permit. But it’s impossible to compare fishing today to back then because it’s almost non-existent now compared to what it was. The permit fishing in the Lower Keys, Key West, has virtually collapsed.
The terminology people use “back in the day,” well, back in the day I would go permit fishing out of Key West with a good angler and we’d get 50 opportunities sometimes to cast to a fish. Today, a really good guide might get three to five shots a day. The permit are virtually gone now.
The Everglades down to the Keys is still a beautiful, gorgeous, viable area. But it’s suffering from poor water quality. Even though water pretty much looks like regular water coming south, it’s not the same if it’s full of nutrients that are damaging to the environment. I’ve been fighting environmental battles in Florida my whole adult career trying to raise awareness and curtail pell-mell bulldozing and all that stuff. It’s all about tax bases, build houses, raise revenue. More schools, more folks, and nobody gives a shit about a snook or a permit. They don’t care. But a golf course? It’s a given. Having spent a lifetime crusading for the South Florida watershed, I frankly think it seems like a hopeless cause. But I challenge the conservation community to prove me wrong.
The way I see it is you really have to support conservation groups if you want a chance at all. Either physically, getting out and working with them to clean the water up, or by giving them money and having them hire people to do it. Just get on something that you think can make a difference.
If you’re a guide and talk someone into catching something it’s an even greater thrill than fishing for yourself because you’re still fishing but you’re fishing through their eyes and trying to guide them into the thrill of a lifetime. That’s what guides do. How cool is that?
It’s a combination of weather and baitfish and angler skill and a whole bunch of different variables that connect, and you go f*#kin’ A! This is what it’s about. Every once in a while you fall into something that fabulous and you hope you’re with someone who appreciates it as much as you do.
The Everglades is still a great place in the world. I get up every day and go out there with the wind in my face. It’s a mysterious place, incredibly mysterious. I always feel like I’m close to the fish of a lifetime even though I haven’t caught one yet, in 56 years. I’ll catch one on the next cast though.
The very first fish I caught in my life was a snook. It weighed about two pounds. I was 10 years old. And I killed it immediately, brought it home. I didn’t know what it was. I just knew it had a stripe on the side. I put it in the refrigerator and my sister’s boyfriend told me it was a snook.
There’s something about the very first fish of significance that you catch. I’ve caught every kind of fish in the world practically, but snook will always be my favorite. They are sneaky. You can be in and around a lot of snook at the time, and they don’t give themselves away. Other fish tend to give themselves away. Tarpon break the surface when they roll. Bonefish stick their tails out of the water. Permit do as well. But snook just lay there, and they feel like they’re gonna stab you in the back if you move the wrong way. I’ll always come home to snook.
The west coast of Florida is suffering from algae blooms, from toxic water events, and it is in a great decline. The snook fishery is in a great decline from Tampa south. I believe it’s because of water quality sweeping down the coast.
The solution to Everglades restoration is clean water coming down from the core of the state, from Orlando south through the Kissimmee, Lake Okeechobee, and delivering clean water to the Gulf and the Shark River system and Florida Bay system. Clean water, viable water to support all sorts of life, with the emphasis on clean, because currently Lake Okeechobee water is notoriously contaminated. If you have high-quality water that’s producing food for the fish, as it enters the Gulf of Mexico it moves south through the Keys and if it’s high-quality water its capable of supporting life other than just the fish – meaning their food source, be it crabs, shrimp, baitfish, everything. Water quality and Everglades habitat considerations are one in the same.
There’s an organization called Captains for Clean Water. A bunch of fishing guides got together and decided they were gonna make an effort, and God bless ‘em, they’re making a big effort and I’ve gone to some of their events and they’re hugely supported. A whole bunch of folks show up. My hat is off to [TRCP partner] Captains for Clean Water. They’re a bunch of great guys and they’re doing the right thing as best they can.
Educating the public and trying to get someone to understand how special this system is and how it definitely influences life on this planet, and whether or not they’re going to be able to feed themselves or their children will be able to feed themselves in 40 years, is so important. We need to change behaviors to attain cleaner water going into the system in the first place. Educating the public that it’s not just water for the fish, but water for our own lives, so we don’t have toxic water. People are always complaining because dead fish are floating in these canals in Naples because nothing can live in the water. Would they like to see it clean? They don’t know what a gamefish is, but they certainly don’t want dead fish floating behind their house.
I think quite honestly the best you can possibly do with any degree of success at all is effective education of the public and the user groups about how valuable an asset the Everglades is. And make them aware, especially the people that are using it, and how not to abuse it when you’re actually there and how to appreciate what a magnificent thing it is.
You tell a kid something when he’s 10 years old and he won’t forget it for the rest of his life. If you can plant that seed, maybe there’s a future for some of these kids to actually see some neat stuff in nature other than a merry-go-round in Disney World. What are the numbers of kids that actually get to experience fresh air and feel something pulling on their line and see a flock of gorgeous birds?
People need to understand how to respect what they have and not take advantage of what they have. Maybe appeal to the youth that this place does exist and maybe not in my lifetime but in their lifetime they can make a difference.
All photos, except of Huff with snook, courtesy of Captain David Mangum, co-director of “Huff – The Film”
HOW YOU CAN HELP
CHEERS TO CONSERVATION
Theodore Roosevelt’s experiences hunting and fishing certainly fueled his passion for conservation, but it seems that a passion for coffee may have powered his mornings. In fact, Roosevelt’s son once said that his father’s coffee cup was “more in the nature of a bathtub.” TRCP has partnered with Afuera Coffee Co. to bring together his two loves: a strong morning brew and a dedication to conservation. With your purchase, you’ll not only enjoy waking up to the rich aroma of this bolder roast—you’ll be supporting the important work of preserving hunting and fishing opportunities for all.
$4 from each bag is donated to the TRCP, to help continue their efforts of safeguarding critical habitats, productive hunting grounds, and favorite fishing holes for future generations.
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