Harris could limit menhaden picking

Editor,

If Congressman Andy Harris really wanted to help the Chesapeake Bay and the Maryland Coastal Bays communities he could advocate for restricting the harvest of menhaden. Menhaden are harvested by a Virginia-based company Omega Protein, with connection to a Canadian corporation Cooke Inc., and used to manufacture fish oil.

The importance to Maryland waters is that menhaden is a food source for rockfish, tuna, whales, dolphins, osprey and eagles. The Department of Natural Resources has been forced to shorten the rockfish season because of declining populations, and conservation groups have reported eagle and osprey chicks dying from starvation. Meanwhile, Omega Protein continues to take menhaden at an alarmingly high rate and the menhaden population has fallen 37% since 2022. Conservationists say that the limit should be cut by 50%

To expect the Trump administration to support an environmental regulation may be a stretch, but this could fit right in. Trump’s petulant Canadian tariffs would give him an excuse. His Justice Department, which is bound and determined to be his judicial weapon against perceived enemies (such as Canada, a country that has been “ripping off the United States of America for years”), would be inclined to agree.

There’s a hitch: Omega Proteins has directed a significant portion of its state-level political donations over the years to conservative and Republican groups, such as the Virginia Senate Republican Caucus and individual Republican general assembly candidates, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.

Congressman Harris could protect the fisheries in his district, but maybe at the cost of donations to Republican legislators in Virginia. This is the test: Which comes first, constituents or the Republican party?

Ronald Pilling
Bishopville