I have two teenagers who love to fish and crab on the bay and Magothy river. But for almost all of us fishing, just isn’t any fun anymore. We have seen the steady deterioration in our fish and wildlife with the disappearance of the menhaden.
I have not heard any valid reason given by this Canadian fishing company in Virginia why they are allowed to take five thousand schools of menhaden Directly from the food supply of our wildlife in the bay. Many thousands of these schools are caught in Virginia just as they are trying to migrate into Maryland. This is not right and this is not fair. 
   It’s been more than 20 years now that this situation has been examined by scientist and there are tens of thousands of pages of reports, letters, minutes of meetings, scientific articles, letters to the editor, press releases, etc. This all started in 2004 when the commission recognized that Chesapeake Bay fish and wildlife were in poor condition and the commission’s ERP Science proved beyond any doubt that when our ospreys and striped bass are in poor condition, it means there is over harvesting of menhaden In the bay. 
     The regrettable thing here is that in that 20 years ,which means there have been over 80 meetings Of the ASMFC menhaden board  this private fishing company in Virginia has been given hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the resources of the Chesapeake Bay .There seems to be no indication whatsoever that that company is willing to simply fish out in the US Atlantic as a long overdue “ THANK YOU “to the people of Maryland and Virginia and Chesapeake Bay. Maryland and Virginia are being treated like some Third World country where international companies come in, Spread a lot of money around and take the peoples natural resources. They use our fish to feed their aquaculture salmon in Canada. These huge supplies of salmon are than imported into this country,  flooding the market reducing the prices that our Waterman get for what they catch on Chesapeake Bay.  Meanwhile, they continue to pocket their profits from the  $30 million worth of menhaden they are given a year. As they say, there is no such thing as a free lunch And it’s 1000s of baby ospreys that are starving in the nest that are paying the price and it’s 100s of charter captains that have gone out of business that have already paid the price and probably 10,000 of their clients that are paying the price. It’s millions of children that should be enjoying Chesapeake Bay bounty that are paying the price. Our striped bass spawning stock is paying the price and the true cost of this is the loss of a significant part of the culture of the people of the Maryland part of Chesapeake Bay, and all of this could be reversed by The members of the MRC having that company fish out into the US Atlantic zone which would not cost  that company any loss of quota, and probably would result in the hiring of some more crew members and spending some more for fuel, supplies, and expenses in the state of Virginia

   Will you please ask favorably on the petition.