Study: Commercial Menhaden Boats Kill Over 22,000 Breeding-Age Redfish as Bycatch Each Year

The results are startling. During the 2024 fishing season, menhaden boats, which use seine nets to secure their catch, were estimated to have led to the mortality of millions of non-target fish species, including 81 million croaker, 25 million sand seatrout, at least 22,000 breeding-size and 8,000 smaller redfish, also known as red drum, as well as other species such as black drum, seatrout, and cownose rays. The report was funded by the Louisiana Legislature and undertaken by LGL Ecological Research Associates, Inc.

Chris Macaluso, director of the Center for Fisheries and Mississippi River Programs for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), told MeatEater that the results of the study are concerning, particularly for the state’s embattled redfish, and they confirm the worries of anglers concerned about anecdotal sightings of dead game fish near menhaden boats.

“It’s really hard to think of any other fish and game management system in which things like this are allowed,” Macaluso said. “We knew there was significant bycatch, but the industry always downplayed it…now we have hard numbers.”

Menhaden or pogy fishing is one of the most controversial forms of commercial fishing in U.S. waters—particularly in the Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf Coast— because it tends to pit the profits of often foreign-owned companies against recreational anglers. According to MeatEater’s own Randall Williams, who previously worked on the issue with TRCP, this is unlikely to change.

“Menhaden are a forage fish that are a foundational nutrient for the gamefish that we like to pursue,” Randall said. “The health of that fishery is critical to everything that’s up the food chain, but there’s also this extractive industry in which companies are reducing menhaden into dog and livestock food.”

“Every school of menhaden that’s vacuumed up by the commercial fishery is a school of menhaden that can’t feed game fish, whether it’s stripers in the Chesapeake or redfish and other species in the Gulf,” he added.

While conservationists point to the recent Louisiana menhaden bycatch study as cause for concern, the commercial fishing industry says it shows that impacts from its bycatch are minimal. A press release published by the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition highlights that “recreational anglers are responsible for 96.6% of red drum removals in Louisiana—a number that far eclipses the 3.4% attributed to the menhaden industry.” It also notes that “26,847 red drum were released alive after incidental capture.”

Macaluso calls this line of logic “disingenuous,” noting that the 22,000 breeding-size redfish killed as bycatch exceed the current slot limit for the species, which was established in June 2024 to address declining populations, and so have an outsized impact on the population. Not to mention the impact that reduced forage species populations, including menhaden but also 81 million croaker, have on redfish, which is less well understood in the region.

“This report did not indicate in any way that the industry is not having an impact on the fishery,” Macaluso said. “That is a conclusion that the industry has drawn to deflect responsibility from itself.”

According to Macaluso, The Pelican State’s redfish population has been struggling for a variety of reasons. Primarily, habitat loss along the Mississippi River, often from human-created levees, has dramatically impacted habitat required for redfish production and recruitment.

Additionally, according to Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries, the species, which has been open to only recreational angling since 1988, has experienced significant overfishing for the past decade. The declining population prompted the agency to restrict angling on June 20, 2024, when the creel limit was dropped from 5 fish daily to 4, and a slot limit of 18 to 27 inches was instituted.

Macaluso said the recent study shows that commercial angling regulations should change, too, in order to save the state’s redfish fishery. Some ways that the industry has adapted—and could continue to adapt—include targeting deeper waters and finding ways to limit the bycatch that’s taken into the “chutes” of menhaden boats.

“There was a time when Louisiana had 40-plus percent of the nation’s wetlands, but we’ve also experienced 90-plus percent of the nation’s wetland losses,” he said. “This is why angler harvest and the menhaden industry are having a larger impact now. There was a time when we had so much productivity coming out of the marsh that the impacts were minimal because the ecosystem was producing so many fish. It’s not like that anymore. We have to make adjustments.”