Chris Macaluso & Jaclyn Lunaas: The Fight to Save Menhaden, the Ocean's Most Important Bait Fish

Transcript

Tom Rowland Podcast — Episode 1032: Chris Macaluso & Jaclyn Lunaas

In this episode: why menhaden are called the most important fish in the sea, the reduction industry, the Louisiana bycatch study, warning signs in the Chesapeake Bay, how Virginia ended up with 75% of the Atlantic quota, the foreign-ownership loophole, the Gulf’s lack of catch limits, and what anglers can do to help.

0:00 · One Company and the East Coast's Most Important Bait Fish

Tom Rowland: One company out of Canada is catching the majority of the bait fish called the menhaden. If you know about the East Coast, the menhaden is one of the most important bait fish that there is, and fish like tarpon, redfish, striped bass, and even offshore fish like king mackerel and many others really, really need the menhaden. It's being caught in record numbers by this one company that is operating in America from a foreign country under an American flag, and I just had to find out what was going on here. I have Chris Macaluso and Jaclyn Lunaas from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership to explain how this works, what else is being caught in these nets, and how damaging it can be, and what we can do to change this fishing operation and preserve this bait fish so that the fish like the tarpon, striped bass, redfish, and so many others have a diet to thrive. Hit subscribe and let's get started with Chris and Jaclyn.

1:04 · Meet Chris Macaluso and Jaclyn Lunaas of TRCP

Jaclyn Lunaas: Hi, I'm Jaclyn Lunaas. I'm the forage fish program manager for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

Chris Macaluso: And I'm Chris Macaluso, and I am the director of fisheries and Mississippi River Basin Program for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. And this is the Tom-

Jaclyn Lunaas: And this is the Tom Rowland ... Rowland Podcast.

Tom Rowland: So Chris and Jaclyn, how are you?

Jaclyn Lunaas: Doing well. Pretty good.

Chris Macaluso: Doing well.

Tom Rowland: I'm glad to have you here. I'm interested in learning a lot about menhaden today. Can you tell us where you're from, where you're working, and what you're working on?

1:42 · Chris on TRCP and Reforming Recreational Fishing Management

Chris Macaluso: Sure. Well, I'm in Louisiana and I'm a, you know, avid coastal fisherman and just I fish for just about anything I can, frankly. You know, I like to joke sometimes that my favorite things to fish for these days are the ones that I don't have to fight with people about. You know, so crappie, bluegill, that kind of stuff. But no, just grew up fishing the Gulf. Have fished thankfully, you know, in a lot of places across the country. But, you know, our organization is a partnership. You know, we partner with a number of organizations that I'm sure your listeners have heard of, American Sportfishing Association, National Marine Manufacturers Association, Coastal Conservation Association. I think everybody, you know, who fishes in the marine space has heard of CCA. BASS, just a number of... You know, Bonefish and Tarpon Trust. And we've been working with those organizations now for more than a decade on reforming recreational fishing management, you know, enacting federal policies and laws to change how data is collected on recreational fishing, you know, how seasons are set and limits are enacted, and just the policies and the laws behind recreational fishing and how it's managed. You know, so if you look at an issue, say for instance, that you guys are dealing with in Florida on the South Atlantic red snapper. You know, a decade or so ago, 12 years ago, the organizations that I mentioned earlier and our organization really kicked open the door on those discussions. Like we knew that federal management was not working for recreational fishing, so we were working with the states and working with NOAA and working with Congress and the regional management councils to figure out approaches that would work. You know, in the case of South Atlantic red snapper, we know one day or two days is not fair. So why can't we try something else to build in a better data collection system? And it's a similar approach when it comes to things like we're gonna talk about today with menhaden forage fish. You know, we know that menhaden and other forage species are a critical part of having healthy game fish stocks, healthy sport fish stocks, and even healthy stocks of fish for other commercial fisheries. How can we enact some regulations and work with, you know, a wide group of conservation-based stakeholders and recreational fishing organizations and advocates to make sure that there's enough forage out there for us to have, you know, not only healthy access to abundant fisheries, but also, you know, a healthy culture and economy built up around recreational fishing.

4:34 · Jaclyn's Forage Fish Work From Maine to Texas

Tom Rowland: Okay. And Jaclyn, what do you work on?

Jaclyn Lunaas: So I essentially am focused on all of our forage fish portfolio, so anything that has to do with Atlantic menhaden from Maine to Florida, and then Gulf menhaden from Texas to Florida. I'm actually based in Minneapolis, so no salt waters to speak of where I am, but I get a little bit of everything with all these different states. So-

Tom Rowland: How did you get so interested in the one fish, menhaden?

Jaclyn Lunaas: You know, I have a background in very niche fisheries, and this position opened up about five years ago, and I think they needed someone who enjoyed the fight a little bit with, you know, fishermen who are sometimes a bit unruly.

5:20 · Why Menhaden Are the Most Important Fish in the Sea

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Okay. So here's what I wanna know. Like, obviously these fish are very valuable. The menhaden is what we're talking about. Can you tell us why they're so valuable, what they're used for, what this whole industry is about? And hang on one second. Jake- Okay. So can you tell us what's special about the menhaden that they have this whole industry around them?

Jaclyn Lunaas: Sure, yeah. So we call menhaden the most important fish in the sea. They basically make up the base of the food chain for all the predators that we like to catch. So they're super oily, nutrient-dense fish. So fish like striped bass, cobia, redfish, they are eating menhaden and getting the most nutrient-rich food that they can. And basically there's kind of two routes that menhaden are harvested for. So one could be bait, whether that's live bait or chum for recreational or commercial fisheries. We're seeing menhaden used a lot more in commercial lobster fishing. And as well, they're also used for fish food and fish oil. So if you think of your omega-3 supplements, that's potentially menhaden or another forage fish similar to menhaden. And menhaden, in particular from the US, are typically ground up into fish feed for salmon farms in Canada, and that's kind of where we can start the conversation, but I won't go too deep down the rabbit hole there.

6:54 · The Reduction Industry: Fish Farms, Pet Food and Livestock Feed

Tom Rowland: Yeah. Well, we've already gone down the salmon farms with Dylan Tomine, who wrote a book. What was that book called, Jake? Headwaters. It was all about the hatcheries. It's a good read if you're interested in that. So the menhaden, I was aware, you know, I'm certainly aware of why fish like to eat them, but I wasn't... And also bait, you know, we see menhaden oil and we see ground menhaden and stuff like that in the Keys, but that cannot be what's driving this massive company. I mean, it seems like they're selling it for a much higher price either as omega-3s, 'cause I do take those sometimes, and then I know that they can be very expensive. And then you have... I've always heard that they were used for makeup and in the makeup industry. Is that true?

Jaclyn Lunaas: I don't know if menhaden in particular are, but probably a species similar to menhaden.

Tom Rowland: Okay.

Jaclyn Lunaas: We've found that probably the majority of the menhaden processed in the US are either going to fish farms or pet food.

Tom Rowland: Okay. Pet food.

Jaclyn Lunaas: Yeah, so-

Chris Macaluso: Yeah, and they use them for livestock feed, too. You know, it's interesting, you know, I had a meeting with a farmer in Iowa last year, and he talked about organic processes of raising his pigs, and the market for these, you know, organically raised pigs that eat nothing but natural forage. And he said the only outside food that he introduces into the diets of those pigs is menhaden oil, menhaden meal. So, you know, it's ground up into... You know, that's why we call it the reduction industry, you know? If we're talking about the bait industry and why those fish are harvested and kept either whole or ground into chum, that's generally for bait. When you're talking about the reduction industry, they catch, you know, hundreds of millions if not billions of pounds of these things and cook them down into something else. They extract the oils out of them for industrial lubricants or to augment livestock feed, or to put into medicine, as you mentioned, or cosmetics. And then the other product that they produce is fish meal, which then goes into either livestock feed or aquaculture operations, farm-raised salmon, farm-raised shrimp, catfish food, you know, those sort of things.

9:22 · Migration and the Predators That Follow the Menhaden

Tom Rowland: Okay. And so there's obviously a problem or we wouldn't be sitting here talking. The menhaden is the basis of the entire ocean up the coast, all over the Gulf, super important to the fishery. Is there anything else that you can kind of lay out as why this fish is so important other than does it have a migratory pattern or anything else that makes it so important to all the fish that eat it?

Jaclyn Lunaas: Yeah, so they do migrate along the Atlantic. You're gonna see them kind of up and down the coast throughout the year, so they feed a lot of different types of predators. In the Mid-Atlantic, for example, striped bass is a huge consumer of menhaden. If you go more north towards New England, we're seeing bluefin tuna are eating a lot more menhaden. There's kind of an issue going on where there's a lot less forage availability, especially in the Atlantic. There's less Atlantic herring, there's less mackerel than we've ever seen before, so we're seeing a lot of these kind of larger ocean predators moving more towards menhaden in their diet. It's becoming more and more important as we've seen in the last decade to 15 years as other species have become less abundant, you know, due to other commercial fishing reasons and environmental factors and things like that. So yeah, especially on the Atlantic, there's a huge migratory pattern that we're seeing with menhaden, and the predators just follow the food all year long. So I mean, you're fishing from one state to the next, and you know whenever the big balls come in, that's whenever you get out on the water and you know you're gonna have a good fishing day. So we're definitely... Yeah, that migratory pattern is huge on the Atlantic and as well in the Gulf. They migrate a little bit less. They're more concentrated around the mouth of the Mississippi River, obviously. That's where most of the nutrient outputs are in the area. But again, we see, like tarpon, for example, redfish, they're following the food all year long.

11:26 · Pogey Boats, Spotter Planes and the Louisiana Bycatch Study

Tom Rowland: I've seen the... Chris and I were talking before we started recording that I've seen the same operations at the mouth of the Mississippi River there in Venice, Louisiana, where they have, they call them the pogey boats there, but the menhaden boats. And they are, I mean, I don't know, I guess you can surround an entire school very easily and then purse seine, bring them all up. I don't know what the bycatch there is, if that is mostly menhaden that they're getting, but everything that hits the deck dies. I'm 100% certain.

Chris Macaluso: That's a pretty accurate assessment. You know, the bycatch, we convinced the state of Louisiana, and by we, I mean us and our partners and several legislators, a couple of years ago, convinced the state of Louisiana to invest in a year-long bycatch study of the menhaden industry in the Gulf. And it produced some pretty eye-opening results. Yeah, it was a relatively low harvest year for the industry. It was conducted during the 2024 menhaden season. And the season in the Gulf generally lasts from about the middle of April until about the first of November. And it depends on the set and the time of year as to how much bycatch is in that harvest. As you mentioned, you know, the way they operate is first off, you know, they've got large ships, 140 foot, 160 foot, 200 foot vessels, that then carry smaller boats that deploy the net. And that net can be as much as 100 yards or more in diameter. They also employ airplanes to spot the schools from the air. You see that. And then the airplane radios down to the boat, the boat approaches the school, they encircle the entire thing in the net, and anything that's in there eating those menhaden does get ensnared in that net. What we found in that bycatch study is that anything really that comes up that massive hose that's on that mother ship, and I don't know the exact diameter of that hose, but they stick a massive hose into the purse seine as they draw it closed. On the end of that hose is a grate. Anything that comes through that grate is more or less gonna die. Fewer of the fish that remain in the net die, but some of them die as well. And so in the Gulf, for instance, and we haven't done a comprehensive bycatch study on the Atlantic fishery, but in the Gulf the results of that, you know, showed that, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 to 160 million additional fish on top of the menhaden were being killed every year. 30,000 of those were redfish. You know, there were, you know, 250,000 speckled trout or so in there. There were a lot of rays, a lot of sharks, you know, a lot of other things that were the base of the food chain as well. 80-plus million croakers, five million white shrimp. You know, these are all just estimates based on the examination of what was coming, you know, into the net and onto the boat by the observers. They observed, I think, about 4% of the sets made during the course of that season. But it's an enormous amount of bycatch, and that's on top of, you know, in the Gulf in particular, the billion pounds, or roughly 600 million to 1.2 billion pounds that they harvest of menhaden every year. And it's worth pointing out that, you know, the reason why you see this effort concentrated in places like Chesapeake Bay or the mouth of the Mississippi or, you know, off of coastal Louisiana where you've got a lot of freshwater interaction, you've got a lot of estuary there, is because the menhaden are filter feeders. That freshwater and saltwater interaction is where you get your explosions in planktons and algaes and other microorganisms that are the base of the food chain that the menhaden then eat. And then, of course, they filter feed. You know, they swim in those massive schools with their mouths open. They convert those microorganisms into fats and oils, and then, of course, that makes its way up the food chain. And as Jaclyn mentioned, everything eats them. You know, on the East Coast, it's striped bass, it's king mackerel, it's, you know, cobia, it's tunas. You know, in the Gulf it's redfish, it's king mackerel, it's Spanish mackerel, it's jacks, it's sharks. I mean, there's not a fish that I can think of, you know, other than maybe some of your offshore reef fish species that don't at some point have menhaden as part of their food.

16:01 · Warning Signs in the Chesapeake Bay

Tom Rowland: Right. And so the push here recently is because obviously there's been a problem noticed, and when you watch the videos that you sent me, you have a drone operator that videos these schools of menhaden, and the reason she does it, she said in the video, is because everything follows menhaden. And of course, she's got whales eating them, she's got fish eating them, ospreys, pelicans, everything eats the menhaden. It's the basis of the whole food chain. And so she was saying that on a regular year she would see, I don't know, 70 something days when she would go out, she would be able to fly her drone and find big schools of menhaden, 70 plus days. And then recently it's been dropped to somewhere in the 20s. And so when she's seeing that from an aerial view, just like the airplanes would, and by the way, if you've never seen a school of menhaden, you can't miss it from the air. It's black as tar. It is a big black spot in the ocean. And if you're in an airplane, you could probably see it 20 feet down, I would imagine. Like, so there's no problem in seeing them. And then the fishing method that they're using for them is extremely effective. I mean, the most effective. Like that's the way they used to do redfish, I guess, is they would see them from the air. They would put a purse seine around them and get them all, every single one of them. And so when you combine something where the fishing method is so effective and then you're using other technologies like airplanes, that probably needs to be tempered at some point, and otherwise they will catch them all. And is that what we're noticing here, like this whole push for limits on them? What was kind of the first indication that something needed to be done?

Jaclyn Lunaas: So we're seeing a lot of warning signs in the Chesapeake Bay in particular. It's kind of the primary spawning and nursery area for a majority of the fish on the Atlantic and menhaden as well. We've seen over the last three or four years some serious problems with osprey breeding success, and we know that whenever osprey are breeding in the Chesapeake Bay, in those kind of saline areas, they're most reliant on menhaden to kind of raise their young because they're the most nutrient-dense food in the area. It's the same thing with striped bass. If you wanna grow the biggest and have the most nutrients, you're gonna be eating menhaden. If you can't find menhaden, you're gonna have a problem. And so within the Chesapeake Bay, that's where the majority of menhaden are harvested by the reduction fishery. So there's a coast-wide quota from Maine to Florida that's allocated in different percentages to each state. Virginia gets 75% of the coast-wide quota, and through Virginia's own kind of quota mechanism, basically one company, this one reduction company called Omega Protein, they get about 70% of the coast-wide quota. So they're able to... They have a company called Ocean Harvesters. They harvest about 70% of all the menhaden that are available to be caught in the Atlantic, and then they process them and reduce them down into fish meal and fish oil at Omega Protein's facility in Virginia. And so as you might imagine, if three-quarters of this coast-wide quota is coming from one state, one small area within the Virginia waters of the Chesapeake Bay and Virginia state waters, you might see some issues after decades and decades of this insane industrial harvest in this super ecologically important area on the coast. And so right now on the Atlantic, at least, the management system is an ecosystem-based management framework. So they use striped bass as kind of a marker to say, "This is how many menhaden should be taken out of the water to leave enough menhaden for striped bass to eat." And that's the most high level without getting into the weeds there. But what we-

20:18 · Striped Bass as the Yardstick for Menhaden Management

Tom Rowland: So now wait a minute. If you have a low striped bass year, so in other words, if the striped bass population is going down, they will say you can catch more menhaden. Is that what I'm hearing correctly?

Jaclyn Lunaas: So it's not necessarily a one-to-one ratio there.

Tom Rowland: Okay.

Jaclyn Lunaas: With fisheries management, you're usually kind of a couple years behind with your data. So essentially the managers will say this coast-wide tonnage can be taken out, and there should be enough menhaden left in the water coast-wide for striped bass if they were rebuilt. So as we know, on the Atlantic there's not as many striped bass right now as we'd like to see. We're in a rebuilding phase for the next couple years. So in theory, if there were, you know, our target number of striped bass, the amount of menhaden left in the water now should be fine for the ecosystem at kind of a super high level. But now we're noticing that because all of this industrial harvest is happening in one small area that's so critical to menhaden, it's so critical to striped bass and all of these other species that reside in the Chesapeake Bay and along the Atlantic, we're seeing problems in this critical area, and the coast-wide management system isn't really picking up those nuances. So we don't have the spatial data to say, "This is exactly how many menhaden should be taken out of the Chesapeake Bay," or even the Mid-Atlantic, for example. So we don't necessarily know what the impacts are of that industrial harvest in this small area. We can say, "You know, coast-wide, things are looking fine," if you're thinking from Maine to Florida, but we have no idea what's going on in this localized area that's so, so critical to the ecosystem. So-

22:01 · The Most Efficient Commercial Fishery There Is

Chris Macaluso: And Tom, as you noted earlier, the way they fish is extremely efficient. Like, I'm not sure-

Tom Rowland: Yeah ...

Chris Macaluso: there's another-

Tom Rowland: Like the most.

Chris Macaluso: Yeah. I mean, other than maybe Alaskan trawlers who just use a massive net, and, you know, use specialized sonars and things like that to find pollock. You know, other than that, I don't know a more efficient commercial fishery, and really a more targeted commercial fishery than the menhaden industry. Now, it's targeted. It doesn't mean that there's not bycatch associated with it. As we talked about, you know, in the Gulf especially, we've noted all the redfish, all the croakers, all the other things that get caught in that net just simply because those fish can't escape. And a lot of times those fish are eating menhaden when they're in the process of harvesting them, and so they just get caught. There's no way for them to get out of the net unless they're physically released. But they use an incredibly efficient method. They use a massive purse seine net. And even with that efficiency, we're seeing that over the last four to five years, for instance, they're having trouble meeting their quotas in the Chesapeake Bay. They're having to fish a lot longer. And generally when that happens in fisheries management, you know, it's an indication that the fish just aren't there. You know? Like, the reason why people aren't having... You know, the reason why the red snapper season in the South Atlantic, for instance, is so short is because there are so many snapper, people are catching them. And that's throwing the data off because so many are being caught, it's hard to estimate, you know, a proper season using the data that NOAA is using now. In the case of menhaden in the Atlantic, the industry has had to fish a lot longer to catch the fish they need to meet their quotas. And in some cases, in the Chesapeake in the last couple years, they're struggling to meet those quotas. And so they're using this incredibly efficient method of planes and purse seines and all of these things, but they're still not catching the fish. That is a pretty clear indication there's something wrong with that population. Especially if you judge it by, you know, the way other fisheries are managed. Like, if there were a lot of menhaden out there, they'd meet that quota fairly quickly. But there aren't a lot of menhaden, so they're not.

24:24 · State Waters, Federal Waters and Who Has a Vote

Tom Rowland: And so, just so I'm clear, in the Chesapeake Bay, that's off of Virginia. So is it being managed federally or state waters for where they're harvesting the menhaden most?

Jaclyn Lunaas: So it's an interstate fishery. They're mainly caught within that zero to three-mile range. But kind of piggybacking off what Chris said, the companies are having to go further to find fish, and so they'll fish off state waters like off New York, off New Jersey, whenever they're not finding fish in Virginia state waters. So they will go as far as they need to go to be able to catch as much as they can. But it is an interstate fishery primarily. And so that-

Tom Rowland: And it's mostly in state waters.

Jaclyn Lunaas: Yeah. Yeah. And so-

Tom Rowland: So NOAA doesn't have a say in this, or they do have a say in it?

Jaclyn Lunaas: They have a voting role at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. That's the oversight body that manages the majority of interstate fisheries-

Tom Rowland: Mm-hmm ...

Jaclyn Lunaas: between Maine and Florida. But NOAA and US Fish and Wildlife Service do have a vote on that commission, so that's kind of where their oversight lies.

25:34 · The Ask: Lower the Quota and Reallocate It

Tom Rowland: Right. And so we've established for sure that there's a problem. There have been a lot more menhaden before. There's a problem with where they're catching them in this critical area. So the question I would have immediately is what is proposed that we do about it? Like, you're proposing limits. So what are the propositions that you're putting forward?

Jaclyn Lunaas: Yeah. So in the Atlantic, there's a couple different levers that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission can pull to deal with menhaden management. So there's the coastwide quota, which is just a tonnage that's allocated to every single Atlantic state. And then under that umbrella, there's a percentage that each state can harvest of that quota. So what we're calling for is a lowering of the coastwide quota according to the best available science, and then under that, to reallocate the percentages of the coastwide quota that each state gets. So again, as we said before, Virginia has had about 75% of the coastwide quota since quotas were implemented over a decade ago, and now we're seeing more and more menhaden available in New England. They're becoming more and more important for recreational and commercial bait fisheries in New England, and they're less available in the Mid-Atlantic. So we're trying to adjust that allocation system and move more menhaden access northward. One, for the ecological realities that we're seeing in the Mid-Atlantic to kind of give the Chesapeake Bay and that area a break, and for the economic component of there's not just one harvester of this fish. It's not just the Omega Protein show. There are a lot of other stakeholders within this fishery from, you know, the fish in the water to commercial and recreational harvesters that deserve access to this resource, and that's good for the ecology of the Atlantic ecosystem and for the economics of these different stakeholders. And then kind of going super local to the Chesapeake Bay, we would love to see adjustments to the amount of fish that can be harvested in the Chesapeake Bay, in particular by Omega Protein, and that process is going through the commission right now.

27:55 · The 40% Overestimate and the 2026 Quota Cut

Tom Rowland: Hmm. So I got a lot of questions about that. So what you're proposing would not necessarily decrease the overall amount of menhaden, it would just spread it out into different areas? Or would there be a reduction of the overall tonnage coming from the whole East Coast?

Jaclyn Lunaas: Yeah, so we are hoping to see a reduction of the overall tonnage and a more kind of even distribution of harvest. So last October was the latest menhaden stock assessment update. Through kind of a series of unfortunate events, the scientists found out that they were overestimating the coast-wide biomass of menhaden by about 40%. And so basically the coast-wide TAC was way too high for the last however many seasons, and the science was showing that a decrease in the coast-wide quota of over 50% would be necessary to leave enough menhaden in the water for striped bass if they were to be rebuilt. So again, kind of it all comes back to striped bass here. So again, an over 50% coast-wide quota cut is huge, so the commission decided to take a 20% quota cut for the 2026 fishing season. This November, they're gonna go back and discuss the next two years, and hopefully we'll see a few more quota cuts, and we'll be able to kind of get back to that ecosystem-based management framework. Because what we're trying to do is leave enough menhaden in the water for the predators that are eating them. Yeah. If striped bass are gonna be rebuilt by 2029, they need to have something to eat, and we can't think about these fisheries in different silos. It's all connected, and, you know, there's an economic component and there's an ecological component, and these are just trade-offs that the commission needs to make. But if we're thinking long-term, if we're thinking sustainable fisheries management, we need to take further coast-wide quota cuts, and we really need to address how many fish are being taken out of this localized ecologically important region.

29:59 · How Did Virginia Get 75% of the Quota?

Tom Rowland: Well, it does seem like when you're trying to rebuild a critical fish population like the striped bass, that if they've gotta be running around trying to find fish, they're not gonna grow very fast. If there are fish more than they can eat all around them, they're gonna grow faster, they're gonna rebuild faster. That seems very, very straightforward. But I wonder about this 75% in Virginia. How does that even happen? How did they get 75% allocation?

Chris Macaluso: You know, historically they've been the one that harvests the most, right? They've got the reduction plant in Virginia state waters, you know.

Tom Rowland: Mm-hmm.

Chris Macaluso: It's located in Virginia. And so that industry has always argued that it needs more in order for it to be able to maintain the jobs and the economic importance that it has. The question boils down to, is that more important than the other economies and the other fisheries that depend on menhaden as well? Or is that more important than the fish that have to eat menhaden to be healthy, and the economies and the cultures that have grown up around those? You know, is it more important to feed fish farms and Chinese pig farms than it is to have a healthy lobster fishery in Maine, for instance? Or, you know, the crabbers in the Chesapeake can have enough bait to put in their traps. You know, and some other things have been going on as well. You know, it's only in Virginia state waters of the Chesapeake where this reduction fishery is allowed to take place. Over the last couple of years, you know, like the guys across the bay in Maryland who are trying to net menhaden to be used as bait for crabbers, they're having a hard time finding them. They're just not catching the fish. Using the smaller nets and the more, you know-

Tom Rowland: Mm-hmm ...

Chris Macaluso: the smaller, more targeted approach that they use, they're having a hard time catching bait. Whereas the reduction industry continues to grind away, you know, literally catching these fish and grinding them into something else.

32:20 · Why Virginia Is the Only State That Allows Reduction Boats

Tom Rowland: Now, can you say that again? You said that this is the only place that the reduction is allowed?

Chris Macaluso: It's the only place where it's allowed in state waters, is the State of Virginia. Anywhere else in the Atlantic has either banned them outright from state waters. Now, they are allowed to fish in federal waters. You know, and that's just the reduction fishery. That's just these large boats with the large purse seine nets. You know, the operations that are catching them for bait are allowed to operate in state waters. You know, for instance, so in Virginia, the 180-foot long, you know, purse seine boats can operate. In Maryland, they can't. It's just operators out there using smaller nets to try to catch them for bait. But the guys in Maryland or New Jersey or Maine, for instance, either, A, don't have enough quota to catch all of the demand that they have on that bait product, or B, can't find enough fish to meet the demand. Yeah. And so it's a question of fairness. Does one industry in Virginia deserve to have that much of what is a critical component to a lot of fisheries up and down the Atlantic?

33:30 · Political Influence, Industrial Spills and Small-Scale Fishermen

Tom Rowland: Well, how did they get banned from certain states? Like, was there... I mean, can you go through that, what the history is of how they got banned in certain states but not Virginia?

Chris Macaluso: Yes, it was really two- Well, I think it boils down to two pretty simple things, and then I'll let Jaclyn... Jaclyn's more the scientist, and I'm more the kick the door open and bark at politicians guy.

Tom Rowland: I wouldn't have known, I wouldn't have known that between the two of you.

Chris Macaluso: Sure. I think it becomes pretty apparent right off the bat, but I think it boils down to a couple of things. Political influence, you know, where Omega, and in the case of, you know, Louisiana, there are two companies, Omega and Daybrook Fisheries. But where they have their processing plants, they have a lot of political influence. And that's both because they employ people there and because they make pretty significant political contributions. These other states where you don't have that economic activity associated with the reduction part of it, you know, with the massive plants that turn menhaden into other things, these other states look at it and say, "Well, we don't need that large-scale industrial activity in our waters. We don't need the problems that are associated with that fishery," which are dirty water, fish spills and kills, you know, just the impacts to your ecosystem that happen when you have that large-scale industry. And this is something, every time I talk to either a lawmaker or, you know, I do an interview, or we talk about the menhaden industry, you know, something I want people to realize is that this industry, these reduction boats, this is not a mom and pop, sole proprietor guy dragging a shrimp net. This is not, you know, analogous to guys who go out and put out crab lines or run crab traps, or even the guys who go out and catch bait with the pound nets. It's not the same thing. This is a large-scale industrial activity. So when these guys spill, you know, 800 dead redfish on a beach in Virginia or do the same thing in Louisiana or Mississippi, this is not just a, you know, small-scale accident. It's an industrial spill. You know? It's the result of a large-scale industrial activity, and there's just a huge difference between that. So some of these states have just decided, we think that having striped bass, and whales, and ospreys, and dolphins, and all these other things in our state waters unmolested by these giant boats is more important than having the giant boats in our waters.

Tom Rowland: Okay. And Jaclyn, you have anything to add to that?

Jaclyn Lunaas: Yeah, I mean, along with the ecological component, there's a huge economic component as well. There's a lot of small-scale fishermen that operate in state waters and off state waters as well that can't compete with these fisheries. I mean, if you're a purse seiner who's harvesting menhaden in New Hampshire, for example, you can catch, you know, 100,000 fish in a day and your boat's full and you gotta go home. They're catching millions and millions of fish. They have offshore loading boats. They're vacuuming fish onto these loading boats. They're out for weeks at a time. So there's kind of a competition factor where these other states that have these small-scale local businesses that need to continue operating, they can't compete with this massive foreign-owned company with dozens of ships out there all day long. It's just apples to oranges. And so again, a lot of other states have decided we're gonna prioritize us. We're not gonna prioritize this one, you know, super politically savvy company, in the case of Louisiana. It's just night and day how they operate.

37:31 · The Foreign-Ownership Loophole

Tom Rowland: So new information there. You said foreign-owned companies. These are foreign-owned companies?

Jaclyn Lunaas: Yeah, so it's kind of a bit of a sticky subject in fisheries management how the foreign-owned situation comes about. But basically, on the Atlantic, Cooke Inc. is a Canadian company, and they own Omega Protein. Omega Protein is the company that harvests and processes all of the menhaden into fish meal and fish oil. They send it up to Cooke salmon farms or to, you know, Purina pet food or whatever. And so there's kind of the foreign element. Omega Protein has an agreement with a US-based company called Ocean Harvesters. They own all the boats, and they have an exclusive harvesting agreement where 100% of the fish that they catch, 100% of the time into infinity are gonna go to Omega Protein. So you could say the people out harvesting the fish on the water, that's not a foreign-owned company. It's technically a US company, but everything is going to this foreign-owned company. So in the end, it's a foreign-owned business. It's a foreign-owned operation. All of the profits are staying within that kind of vertical chain, and that's how they want it to remain.

Tom Rowland: Okay.

Chris Macaluso: They've exercised a loophole-

Tom Rowland: Yeah ...

Chris Macaluso: more or less. You know, American fisheries laws do not allow foreign-flagged vessels to harvest in the exclusive economic zone, and that goes out to 200 miles. What these companies have done, and it's important to remember that up until about a decade or so ago, these were American-owned companies. The processing plants were American-owned. But now foreign fisheries and other food processing conglomerates like Cooke or like, you know, like Daybrook Fisheries for instance, Oceana Inc., which is out of South Africa, they look at these, you know, they look at the market for the products that are made out of menhaden, and they wanna integrate that into an international conglomerate company. And so they have found a loophole, which is we know we can't have a Canadian flag or a South African flag on the back of these boats, but we can, quote-unquote, lease them from companies that own the boats that are American companies. Now, we know, everybody knows, it's no secret that the foreign companies have tremendous influence over what happens in these American-flagged boats. It's just no secret, but it's a loophole in the American law that they have figured out how to exploit.

40:20 · The Atlantic Commission vs. the Gulf's "Wild Wild West"

Tom Rowland: Wow. And so, at this point, what would need to happen to, if you just blue-skyed it and say, "Okay, our suggestions have been, you know, taken and there's gonna be a reduction," what would need to happen for that to go into place? Like, what would be the process? 'Cause I know it's pretty in-depth to change laws like that.

Jaclyn Lunaas: Yeah, so it's kind of a very different process between the Gulf management system and the Atlantic. In the Atlantic, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has oversight jurisdiction over this fishery, so everything that happens that changes within the management system goes through the commission. So they set the coast-wide quota, they set the allocations, and they're dealing with kind of the Chesapeake Bay cap that Omega Protein has to operate under. Within that, different states can do kind of whatever they want as long as it falls under, you know, the umbrella of what the commission is already doing. So Virginia could, for example, be more conservative in whatever the commission decides moving forward and say, "Okay, we're gonna catch less than what we're allocated." Obviously, they wouldn't do that, but they could if they wanted to. But on the Atlantic, there's at the very least an oversight mechanism through this fisheries commission. Now, on the Gulf, we call it the Wild Wild West. The Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission doesn't have oversight capacity. Louisiana doesn't have any catch limits, neither does Mississippi. It's kind of a free-for-all. There's three processing plants. There's about 32 vessels operating, and they can catch as much as they want as long as it's within the limits of the season days, and they do. They catch as much as they can process every single year, and there's no ecosystem-based catch limit. There's no state catch limit. There's nothing stopping them from harvesting as much as they want. So for something to change, it would really need to come from the state of Louisiana or the state of Mississippi, and that's easier said than done, that's for sure.

42:40 · Sticking to the Science in the Atlantic

Tom Rowland: Well, it... Like, what we've been talking about so far is, you know, kinda isolating Chesapeake as a real sensitive area, right? And that's where you really want to change things. But then you just said that there's no catch limit in Louisiana or Mississippi. So is there just more menhaden there, or is it not a problem, or are you just trying to tackle one thing at a time here?

Chris Macaluso: We're trying to tackle both. I think we're making more progress in the Chesapeake and in the Atlantic. And I think it's noteworthy to point out what Jaclyn said about the fact that there is an ecosystem-based catch limit in the Atlantic. And what we would like to see the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission do is adhere to what the science tells them that limit needs to be. Last year, going into that meeting in October, the science produced by the ASMFC said we should take a 50% reduction in the overall allowable catch of menhaden in order to maintain the integrity of this ecosystem-based catch limit that's put in place. The commission decided to take a more stepped approach, and I think there's indications that they're gonna continue to step down that catch limit to maintain the integrity of that ecologically based catch limit, but we want them to stick on that path. This is what the science says, stick to what the science says. And we want them to take a similar approach in the Chesapeake itself. You know, there may not be the political appetite to remove that fishery entirely from the Chesapeake, but if we're stepping down the quota in the Atlantic as a whole, the quota in the Chesapeake needs to be stepped down as well. So we're pushing the ASMFC, and not just TRCP obviously, but a wide, you know, coalition of organizations and people who care about this fishery, are pushing the ASMFC to continue to reduce that quota back down to where it aligns with the scientific aspects of the management. And the same thing could be said about the push to reallocate, you know, to shift the quota into other areas, you know? It's a basic fairness question. Should Virginia have its hands around 70 to 75% of that quota, or is it needed in other places? And I think the answer is pretty clear that, you know, other fisheries depend on menhaden. It shouldn't be just Virginia and one company that gets all of the say so in how that gets divvied up.

45:20 · Ecology vs. Economics, and King Mackerel in the Gulf

Tom Rowland: So when you start-

Chris Macaluso: And it all... Go ahead, I'm sorry.

Tom Rowland: going on that argument of other states need it, that's a financial argument, right? Like, the other states need to harvest that. And, but that's a very different argument than the ocean needs it, right? And so how do you walk that line between the two? Because you can use one to get your point across and to get, you know, the ball across the goal line of what really... We want the ocean to be healthy, right? But how do you walk between those two arguments? Because they seem to be different.

Chris Macaluso: They are different and yet they are similar, you know, in that one obviously influences the other. You know, I think a lot of the arguments about why the limit wasn't reduced the full 50% last year were economic. Yeah, it was we can't take that big a hit, we can't put people out of business, we can't put people out of work. And that was the leading argument as to why it needed to be stepped down more than just simply following, you know, what we thought should have happened, which was follow the science. But I think, you know, they depend on each other. If we continue to reduce the quota to match what the science says, and then we can make some adjustments to where the economics have benefits to people up and down the Atlantic, then you can do both at the same time. I don't know that you can do both if you don't do some sort of reallocation, right? Because if you continue to reduce the quota to match the science, everybody takes a cut. You know, so the guys who are struggling to find bait now are gonna struggle even more. And I think it's a question of how do you get the science and the economics to align? You know, we want the science to lead, and then we need to figure out where the best cases are for the economics to follow that science. And in the case of the Atlantic fishery, we think the benefit is there in having people who need those fish for bait have more access to them. You know, the end product for those communities that depend on lobstering or crabbing or, you know, menhaden for other products, you know, that's as important if not more important for their communities than it is to reduce these fish down to dog food. You know? In the case of the Gulf, I think the argument needs, again, we're gonna continue to make this argument, and not just, again, TRCP, but a large, broad coalition of conservation organizations. There's a lot of value in leaving more menhaden in the water. You know, we're doing a stock assessment right now on king mackerel in the Gulf, and the anecdotal evidence is that it's not good. We're not catching king mackerel like we did 25 years ago, 20 years ago. When I go offshore, I don't hardly see them at all anymore. And you used to come across massive schools of kings off Louisiana's coast. The science that has been conducted by NOAA and the University of Florida tells us that if we wanna rebuild mackerel stocks, we gotta leave 40% more menhaden in the water than are being left right now. You know? But now we have to go through the political process of convincing commissioners and legislators and the other people who manage these fish that that's the right steps to take. You know, we firmly believe we need to leave more of these fish in the water. Now we've gotta convince the fisheries managers and the politicians that that's the right move.

Tom Rowland: What does it take to do that, to convince them?

Chris Macaluso: Making the economic argument. Sometimes it boils down to simply right versus wrong. You know, is it right to have these large foreign-owned companies taking this many fish out to the detriment of other species and other communities? Is that right? Some legislators think it's not right, and some do. You know, we've gotta get more of them who think it's not right to vote certain ways than we do the ones who side with the industry. And that's just basic politics.

49:51 · How Do You Count a Bait Fish?

Tom Rowland: Yeah. On the science and the data, how do you even do a stock assessment of menhaden?

Jaclyn Lunaas: Ooh, well that's a multi-parter. So there's, I mean, a bunch of different factors that go into a stock assessment. There's fishery surveys up and down the coast that are done offshore and within each state, and basically the scientists will survey, they'll catch as many fish as they can with different gear types, and they'll say, "Okay, we've seen this many menhaden. We've seen this many of, you know, whatever other species." And they can compare it to how many they've seen in prior years and they'll say, "Okay, if we've caught more this year, maybe there's more biomass. We can kinda extrapolate that out. If we caught less this year, maybe there's less biomass." They'll check to see how many juveniles versus how many adults there are, so you can kind of see recruitment into the fishery year on year. Especially for menhaden, they're a very short-lived species, so if you see a lot of young of years, we call them, then you can expect the next year there's gonna be, you know, maybe a higher biomass if they all, you know, survive and all that. So that's one part of it. They'll take landings, commercial and recreational landings of different species and say how have the landings changed over time. And basically, long story short, they combine all of these things and kind of extrapolate them at a coast-wide scale or a regional scale, depending on the species, and they'll say, "This is more or less... We can be, you know, more or less confident that this is where the species is headed." And so it's a lot of kind of small-scale surveys and putting the data that we have together and, you know, making assumptions to the broader ecosystem. So it's not, you know, an exact science. It's not like one plus one equals two, but-

Tom Rowland: Right ...

Jaclyn Lunaas: you know, we're pretty confident in this.

Tom Rowland: But with other fish, say you were going to do the king mackerel or whatever, there would be commercial boats they could go to and they could see exactly how many were caught. They could ask recreational people and they're gonna know, "Yeah, we caught 3 today. We caught 30 today." Something. But with menhaden, it seems like way more difficult.

Jaclyn Lunaas: Yeah, there's definitely an interesting factor with fish like menhaden, which are called forage fish or bait fish, because you're also thinking about what's eating menhaden on the water. So you can take diet, like stomach samples of different predators, and you can say, you know, we took 10 stomach samples of cobia, and 9 out of the 10 cobia had menhaden. So probably cobia are really reliant on menhaden in the ecosystem. And you can think about that for different age stanzas of different predators. So like whether or not menhaden are being eaten by striped bass when they're at their juvenile stages or when they're in their breeding time, things like that. So that's kind of an added element to the menhaden stock assessment that brings it to that ecosystem component of saying, we're seeing this many menhaden out in the water. We're catching this many, and also here's kind of how the predators in the ecosystem are interacting with menhaden. It's a little bit harder because like you can't open up a humpback whale kind of thing.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Jaclyn Lunaas: Yeah, but-

Tom Rowland: They get those stomach samples from commercial fishing vessels or recreational, would they take into account... I mean, would you have a survey come up to you at the cleaning table and say, "Can we see what's in the stomach of those fish?" Or-

Jaclyn Lunaas: They could, so that would probably be more of like a university research program.

Tom Rowland: Mm-hmm.

Jaclyn Lunaas: So like, I don't know, if University of Florida had-

Tom Rowland: Right ...

Jaclyn Lunaas: a couple PhD students who were doing their dissertation on, you know, what X predator is eating, then they would probably go up to you and see if you would give the stomach of whatever you're catching. But also the state surveys do that. So they'll get permits to be able to take stomach samples of, you know, X number of species and things like that. So it kinda just depends on what the research line is coming from.

53:58 · Correcting the 40% Overestimate

Tom Rowland: So did you say earlier that some of this data was overestimated by 40%?

Jaclyn Lunaas: Yeah. So they were overestimating the coastwide biomass of Atlantic menhaden by about 40%.

Tom Rowland: So with what you're trying to do, would that take into account, like if you were gonna reduce the catch by a certain percentage, can you also say, and it was overestimated by 40%, which means it should be reduced even further?

Jaclyn Lunaas: Yeah. So the 40% would come first. So because they were overestimating menhaden so much, they had set the previous coastwide quota so high that they realized, oh my gosh, it actually needed to be 50% less the entire time. So moving forward, we need to cut it by about 54%.

Tom Rowland: Wow.

Jaclyn Lunaas: So moving forward, you would assume with, you know, this correct, now correct biomass assumption, you would have the correct coastwide quota to meet all the ecosystem needs that menhaden provide.

54:58 · Tarpon, Redfish and the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet

Tom Rowland: How, how would they-

Chris Macaluso: It's worth pointing out too that, you know, a lot of times when you talk about reducing the menhaden quota, the industry, which pays for a lot of science, has a lot of scientists on their payroll, they'll come back and say, "Well, but fish don't have to just eat menhaden. There's lots of other things out there for them to eat." Well, and that's a, you know, I mean, it's a good point. Fish eat lots of stuff. You know, anybody who fishes knows that. You know, they know a speckled trout'll eat a shrimp. They'll eat juvenile crabs. They'll eat, you know, any number of things. But at particular times of year, when menhaden is the abundant forage, they rely on the presence of that forage in order to be healthy. And what we see a lot of times, like Bonefish and Tarpon Trust, for instance, is doing a lot of research on tagging tarpon to see how they move. You know, you'll see there's a lot of tarpon that come up from south Florida towards Louisiana's coast late in the summer to intersect menhaden schools. Primarily what they're out there eating is menhaden. The same can be said for red drum, you know, for redfish. You know, you see redfish gather in large spawning aggregates this time of year, whether it be on the Atlantic side or the Gulf. A lot of times those big spawning aggregates are going to intercept big schools of menhaden as they move out of the estuary into the more open water areas where the redfish are spawning as well. So when those menhaden are present, the redfish are gonna gorge themselves on those fish, and we've seen that happen. So it's not as simple as saying, "Well, you know, we cut open a redfish in January, and we didn't find any menhaden in its stomach." Well, no, you may not have at that time. They may have been eating crabs then. They may have been eating crawfish in the Mississippi River. You don't ever know. But during July, August, September, October, November, when those massive menhaden schools are out there and you've got those large redfish spawning, they're eating menhaden.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Chris Macaluso: And you can't just take away a large portion of that diet for those fish. They rely on it those particular times of year.

Tom Rowland: Right.

Chris Macaluso: They might put on 40% of their body mass during those times of the year.

Tom Rowland: Right. And if they don't, they're... I mean, it's obviously super important. I don't know how somebody would not understand that, but I guess if- I don't know. I guess if you're arguing against it, you could argue that they do eat lots of other stuff, and there is lots of other stuff for them to eat, but not when it's like... I mean, it's like the difference between literally, like, scavenging for food or walking into an all-you-can-eat buffet. And if you are at a caloric deficit the entire year, but that puts you over the edge and you can now make it further, I mean, that's what's going on. It's so easy for them. They go there, they have to put out zero effort. They're gorging themselves on these fish, and that's what helps them to make it through the rest of the year. I mean, they have to have that. All of them. Otherwise, they wouldn't swim from Key West to Louisiana. Like, they know what they're doing. Like-

Chris Macaluso: Absolutely ...

Tom Rowland: there's a reason they're doing that, because there's not enough food for them without a tremendous amount of effort off Key West. And so those tarpon, they're going all the way up there so that they can just crush it for a couple of months.

Chris Macaluso: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, Mother Nature doesn't make mistakes like that.

58:32 · What Anglers Can Do: Talk to Your Commissioners

Tom Rowland: No, no, it doesn't. So what about, like, as it comes to just anglers, people who love the ocean, people who are interested in this as an issue, what do regular people do to help you get this across the line?

Jaclyn Lunaas: Well, in each state we always say advocate to your commissioner. You know, on the Atlantic, every Atlantic state has three commissioners that have a voting role at the Fisheries Commission. There's a representative from each state's DNR. There's a governor's appointee and a legislative commissioner, and they need to hear from you. They need to hear that their stakeholders, the people that they're voting for, care about this fish. They care about conservation. They care about their own state's, you know, economic stake in this fishery that's so, so critical. So any kind of advocacy that you can do to the people who are making the decisions about this fish and other fish, it's important. They need to hear from you. If they don't hear that anyone cares, they're not gonna think it's important, or they're gonna say, "This is Virginia's problem. We're gonna let them deal with it." But it really is a coast-wide fish. It's a coast-wide issue. And it's the same thing in Louisiana and Mississippi. You know, politicians are gonna be vested in the outcome of this fishery if they hear from people who are stakeholders in the fishery. Even if it's a legislator from a non-coastal district, it's important because if you're fishing, you know, you're not just gonna stay in your district. You're gonna go, and you're gonna spend tourism dollars and go fish offshore. And so everything is connected, and every vote, every decision-maker is important. And so whatever people can do to advocate and, you know, ensure that there's importance placed on this is huge.

Chris Macaluso: Yeah. Appointed officials and elected officials, they, you know, they need to hear from the people who elected them. And don't be shy about it. And the other thing I would say to people is don't get frustrated. You know, I know a lot of these processes are slow. A lot of times politicians will interject themselves into the system and cut deals with other politicians, and it derails progress. But, you know, these things take a long time, and you can't just throw your hands up in frustration and say, "Oh, that's politics. We'll never make a difference." I think we've all seen, you know, instances in which advocacy and concerted efforts to talk to politicians and, you know, fisheries managers and things like that make a difference. You know, we're making significant progress on Everglades restoration, for instance. If a bunch of really aggravated, pissed off fishermen who were seeing the detrimental impacts of what was happening in the Everglades hadn't spoken up 10, 15 years ago and continued to press the issue, we may not be making the advances that we're making, and that's just one example out of a lot of things. You know, you have to be involved, you have to speak up for the things that you care about, and there's never a bad time to talk to your, you know, either your representative of your state on the commission or your elected official and say, "I really care about this. This impacts my life, my quality of life, my economics, et cetera, and I want you to do the right thing when it comes to managing this fishery."

1:02:06 · Lessons From Captains for Clean Water

Tom Rowland: Yeah, that's a good example. The strides that have been made in Florida water have been really blowing my mind. And Captains for Clean Water, I've been working with them for a long time. One of the things that I say about them regularly is that I feel like they were as successful as they were because it wasn't just a bunch of pissed off fishing guides that were pointing the finger and yelling. They actually educated people on what the problem was, how it could affect them, even if they never went fishing. Like, maybe they own a restaurant, or maybe they own a hotel, or maybe they own something else, and brought those people in to understand, "Oh, this could really be bad for my business. This could really be very detrimental to the state of Florida. I think if there's something that we can do, I think I'm in favor of doing something about it," right? And so you bring in all these other people that were not the original... I mean, they weren't the ones walking on the beach and seeing all the dead fish. They weren't the fishing guides that had to cancel all their charters. They were other people that came in and made the voice much stronger. And I feel like in the same way, this could be a similar issue of it's not just about the menhaden, and maybe you never catch a striped bass in your entire life. It's still important to you. And trying to figure out ways to educate other people so that they care about this issue and see how it could affect them, whether they fish or they don't fish. I think that's the real challenge, I think. And when you can find a place where you can do that and bring in other groups, I think it becomes way more powerful.

Chris Macaluso: I agree. And, you know, hats off to Jaclyn and our staff, but also so many other people. You know, we mentioned some of the other partners that we have, and that's really why, you know, American Sportfishing Association, Coastal Conservation Association, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, National Audubon Society. I mean, these folks are very concerned about the very clear impacts that are happening to coastal birds and the loss of that forage base, you know, the loss of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay. You know, it takes a lot of people pushing in that direction to start to make the difference, and that's why we're working with commercial fishermen, too. You know, it's not often that recreational fishermen and commercial fishermen can sit down at the same table. I mean, I'll just say that frankly. I mean, you know, and I think the menhaden industry has gone out of its way to convince lobstermen or shrimpers or folks like that, that we're not their friends, and that we're coming after them next, and all of those things. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm telling you, we don't have those conversations. You know, the challenge I think for all of us who care about the fishery, and care about other fisheries other than this large scale industrial operation, is making sure that that large scale industrial operation is not the only one that's at the table. It's not the only one that has political influence. It's not the only one that's pressuring fisheries management or paying for the science. We all have to have a piece of that. And, you know, frankly, I think it's incredibly disappointing, you know, how many small scale commercial fisheries, whether it be in the Gulf or up and down the Atlantic, have had to shut their doors because this resource has been directed either too far in one way, or there's just not enough of it to go around, or the regulations have become so stringent that they can't make a living. You know, these communities are not just built on massive industrial fisheries operations. They're built on small scale fisheries, community-owned businesses, recreational fishermen being able to go there and spend money. That's the lifeblood of a lot of these places. And that can't be shuttered entirely because of a large scale industrial fishery.

1:06:15 · How to Learn More and Sign the Petition

Tom Rowland: Well, I agree. So how can people learn more about what's going on and get involved?

Jaclyn Lunaas: Well, we have a forage fish webpage. If you go to trcp.org/foragefishrecovery, it kind of gives you the high level about what we talked about today. We also have a petition going on if you want to sign in support of initiating reallocation of menhaden quotas to different states, if you're just interested in, you know, signing your name and getting involved. But those are kind of the two avenues that are TRCP based where you can get some more information. If you want to contact Chris or I, we are always happy to chat with folks and give folks more information. You know, depending on what state you're in, if you're interested in getting involved in, you know, a more local capacity, we can give you information about that as well.

Tom Rowland: Okay. All right. Well, I certainly wish you all the best of luck. I appreciate you coming on and educating me and the whole audience about this fight. It seems to be crucially important to the entire coast and the Gulf. But thanks for coming on. Appreciate it.

Jaclyn Lunaas: Thank you.

Chris Macaluso: Thanks for having us.

Tom Rowland: Okay. All right. We'll be back with another great guest next week. Go to trcp.org, check this out, and sign the petition if you are interested. All right. That'll be it for this week. We'll see you next week.