A group of anglers got President Donald Trump’s attention in a long-running campaign to protect a lesser-known forage fish in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association posted a 4-minute video on YouTube that blames a reduction in menhaden in the bay on the Canadian company Cooke Seafood. A letter posted along with the video calls on Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to stop Cooke Seafood from removing menhaden from the Chesapeake Bay and other Virginia waters.
“Foreign companies profit off of industrial fishing for U.S. forage fish (aka bait fish) undermining American businesses and workers,” the group wrote in a Change.org petition. “By taking bold action to end industrial scale fishing for vulnerable bait fish, America can harness the full economic potential of our fisheries, create jobs, and secure a sustainable future for America’s fishing industry and coastal communities.”
The video casts the conflict as a battle between local anglers and a giant Canadian-owned conglomerate illegally fishing in U.S. waters. A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Cooke, Ocean Fleet Services and others in January.
The allegations started years after Cooke Inc., a New Brunswick company and parent of Cooke Aquaculture Inc., bought Omega Protein Corporation, which makes specialty oils and specialty protein products, for $500 million in 2017.
Two people sued Cooke, Omega Protein, Ocean Fleet Services, and others in 2021 under the False Claims Act, alleging the companies falsely structured the acquisition and defrauded the government when they obtained U.S. fishing permits.
Some of the defendants, including Ocean Fleet Services, wrote in a motion to dismiss that “stripped of the hyperbolic innuendo, this is a case about entities engaging in a routine business transaction, with the express authorization of a fully informed industry regulator, involving the purchase of fish processing facilities and the sale of fishing vessels.”
“The net result of the transaction, which is a U.S. citizen-owned fleet entering into an agreement to sell its catch to a foreign-owned processor, is expressly permitted under federal law,” defendant’s wrote in the motion to dismiss.
A judge dismissed that suit in January, ruling that neither fish nor a fishing license met the definition of property under the False Claims Act.
The complainants have since appealed that ruling, alleging, among other things, that defendants violated the American Fisheries Act’s citizenship requirement, which requires U.S. commercial fishing vessels to be owned and controlled by U.S. citizens.
A decision on the appeal is pending. A group of law professors wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief in the appeal that “the district court’s decision fails to recognize the substantial property rights States and the Federal Government historically had and today still have in wildlife in their lands and waters,” according to court records. That brief further argued that the “district court’s denial of those substantial property rights overlooks two hundred years of American history and weakens Federal and State protections of our Nation’s natural resources.”
Cooke Seafood told The Center Square it doesn’t own or operate the menhaden operation. Cooke directed comment to Ocean Fleet Services, which did not respond to a request for comment.
The Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association succeeded outside the court in getting Trump to post its video on his Truth Social platform. Trump’s post didn’t include any comment.
Conservatives for Fair Fishing, a group focused on the issues, wrote in a recent blog post that Trump should stop the practices highlighted in the video.
“The plundering of menhaden in U.S. waters only scratches the surface of foreign control over the American seafood industry. While menhaden serves as bait, other foreign conglomerates command tremendous control over the U.S. food supply,” the group wrote in a blog post.
