The Advocate/Times-Picayune: Louisiana Legislature Chose Balance on Menhaden: Stronger Oversight Without Sacrificing Coastal Jobs

Published: Sunday, June 7, 2026
‍This article is brought to you by the Louisiana Commercial Fisheries Coalition LLC.

Louisiana’s menhaden fishery is often scrutinized from afar, which makes it easy to forget that behind the headlines are working families, multi-generational fishing operations, and blue-collar jobs in coastal communities like Plaquemines and Vermilion parishes, and localities in between, that depend on this resource.

That is why the commercial menhaden fishery approached this legislative session with a simple goal: work cooperatively with lawmakers on practical, science-based measures that improve transparency, reporting, and accountability, without inflicting unnecessary harm on the people who make their living on the water.

That is exactly what happened.

Lawmakers considered several proposals this session impacting where the menhaden fleet operates. The debate was sometimes heated, and some advocates cast the fishing industry as a villain. But our industry listened, engaged, and worked with the Legislature to advance reasonable measures while opposing proposals that would have imposed severe economic harm.

The Legislature chose to strengthen oversight and public confidence through better reporting, clearer accountability, and vessel-tracking requirements, while rejecting an approach that would have pushed the fishery into an unworkable corner.

First, HB 872 requires purse seine vessels engaged in commercial menhaden reduction fishing, to use Automatic Identification Systems. The larger steamers or mother ships are already equipped with the technology. AIS creates a vessel-location record that can support enforcement, improve accountability, and answer whether boats are respecting established boundaries. It will require industry investment in equipment, installation, maintenance, and compliance, but it is a practical and transparent bill.

Second, lawmakers strengthened accountability for certain violations. Our fishermen respect the law and designated fishing areas. Some proposals included a first offense fine of $50,000. The Legislature took a more balanced approach. HB 757, now signed into law as Act 316, includes a first offense fine of $2,500, roughly a tenfold increase from the prior $250 penalty. Boundaries matter, and the law now reflects that.

Third, in HB 886, lawmakers improved public understanding of the menhaden fishing industry without compromising sensitive details. We are transparent in our operations, but commercial catch records can reveal operational strategies and detailed fishing patterns. The proper balance is to give the public a clearer picture at an aggregate level of harvest without turning over specific set-by-set location information that would unfairly expose individual company’s operations.

These reforms occurred in a fishery with a strong management and conservation record. Louisiana recently conducted a bycatch study, funded through a $1 million legislative appropriation and administered by the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, using onboard observers and electronic monitoring to evaluate 418 purse-seine sets, 3.2 percent of Louisiana’s total 2024 menhaden fishing effort. The results did not support widely circulated claims that menhaden fishing is an unchecked driver of sportfish mortality. Total bycatch was estimated at roughly 3.6 percent by weight, below Louisiana’s 5 percent cap, and red drum mortality from the fishery was a small share of overall red drum removals. This demonstrates that any further reforms should be proportional, targeted, and grounded in data rather than anecdotes or worst-case assumptions.

That is why the Legislature acted prudently in declining to advance HB 855, which would have required the fleet to only fish in waters deeper than 22 feet. Supporters framed it as a bycatch solution, but it would have removed miles and miles of available fishing grounds that sustain the fishery. Landings records show that roughly 85 percent of menhaden landings occur in the zone the bill would have restricted. This structural disruption would have threatened jobs and the established fishing practices in Louisiana’s coastal communities.

The stakes are real. Louisiana’s Gulf menhaden industry supports more than 2,000 jobs, generates more than $419 million in annual economic impact, purchases tens of millions of dollars in goods and services across dozens of parishes, and supports dock workers, plant employees, welders, mechanics, truck drivers, fuel suppliers, vessel-service businesses, and coastal small businesses. No responsible policymaker should dismiss those livelihoods as collateral damage.

Policymakers also shouldn’t ignore the broader management context. Louisiana has already adopted significant nearshore protections, including coastal buffer zones and additional protections in sensitive and high-priority areas. The question before lawmakers was whether to pair those protections with practical oversight tools or to impose a sweeping depth restriction that would have displaced most of the fishery’s historic landings.

The scientific claim behind the depth restriction was also far less settled than some advocates suggested. As discussed during the session, pushing boats incrementally farther from shore did not show a consistent bycatch reduction. A major reduction appeared only at the 22-foot threshold, the same point at which the fleet would lose access to most of its traditional landings area. Louisiana’s Legislature weighed that tradeoff honestly and chose balance.

The menhaden fishery is sustainable, heavily scrutinized, and economically important. Gulf menhaden are not overfished and are not experiencing overfishing. That’s why the fishery was recently recertified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.

This legislative session demonstrated what is possible when the people closest to the work engage legislators and follow the science to advance reasonable oversight measures that retain valued jobs and livelihoods.