I have grown up on the Chesapeake Bay and the Outer Banks. I have watched all of the fish I used to catch decline to almost nothing since 2000. On the Outer Banks, they no longer chase menhaden up the beach. They have disappeared. Now almost the entire population of Ospreys in Mobjack Bay (and probably much further) is gone too. Almost 100 pairs migrate from South America to Mobjack Bay, as they have done their whole life, to reproduce. Now all their chicks die here.

This is all to protect one company that employs less than 300 people in Virginia. It is a Canadian Company! Do they even pay taxes here? We pay unemployment to those people in the off season. How can we justify ruining the health of the largest estuary on the east coast because of one company, Omega, who has fished all of the menhaden out of the Bay.

It is the sole responsibility of VMRC to manage the health of the Bay and they have let it die. Every other east coast state and now the last Gulf state have stopped menhaden fishing. How can Virginia be the last remaining state? It is inconceivable! Omega is taking these fish and using them to feed farmed fish in another state or country! It needs to stop now! Let them fish in the ocean, away from the Bay, until actual research instead of just statistical analysis is done to protect the MOST IMPORTANT FISH IN THE SEA!! Why are you protecting this company at the expense of the Bay?