Ben Wurst

Link to register for the webinar and make a comment: asmfc.org/actions/atla...

Learn about Draft Addendum II, a crucial precautionary measure designed to help address issues with localized depletion on the Chesapeake Bay and other parts of the East Coast. The deadline to leave a public comment is October 9.

I urge everyone who shares my love for a biodiverse, thriving coast to attend the final ASMFC Public Hearing this evening (10/1) at 6pm.

If there isn’t enough food in our coastal waters to support ospreys, we have to ask: what is happening to all the other marine species we can’t see or study as easily?

As my friends know, I have devoted my career to ospreys. I have immense respect for this species and their role as ecological indicators. Their collective health reflects the health of our ocean.

Menhaden evolved to be eaten. They filter our coastal waters, fuel predatory fish at every life stage, and sustain top-tier predators like eagles, ospreys, gannets, tuna, bluefish, striped bass, dolphins, whales. The relationship between predator and prey is a delicate balance of mutual dependance.

This humble forage fish, also known as bunker, pogy, fatback, is the natural resource that has made the osprey’s historic recovery possible after DDT, habitat loss, persecution and overfishing nearly wiped them out.

Right now the Atlantic States Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) is in the final days of seeking public comment on the future of Atlantic menhaden.

In 2025 and 2026, an average of 51% of active osprey nests failed, which is more than double the average rate observed over the previous decade. Brood sizes are dropping as well: only 5% of pairs produced three young in 2025-26, compared to a ten-year average of 22%.

Parents had a grim choice: forage for survival or stay and watch their young starve. At nests that did hatch young, many chicks grew emaciated and ultimately starved to death.

Adult males spent more time away from nests as they attempted to find and catch prey. In turn, females were left starving at nests and forced to forage for themselves and their brood. This left their eggs/young vulnerable to potential predators and exposure to the elements.

Food stress was widespread across all our coastal colonies this year. This spring, as females returned to their nests, many did not lay eggs, as there was not enough prey to support egg development.

Every other nesting pair that laid eggs or hatched young failed. Normally, this colony fledges an average of 40 young per year and serves as a vital bellwether for the health of our coast.

This year, at Sedge Island, home to New Jersey’s most densely populated osprey colony and located inside the only marine conservation zone, only two young fledged.

protect a natural resource that generates immense ecological value while supporting economic wealth through recreational fishing, birding, whale watching and ecotourism.

Recreational anglers and the JCAA recognized the destructive impact of industrial fishing on the broader coastal ecosystem. The goal of that legislation was simple:

As Frank Richetti of the Jersey Coast Anglers Association stated in July 2000: “We want to protect the health of the resource and, secondly, we want to prevent over fishing in localized zones.”

To address this crisis, New Jersey passed a landmark bill in 2002 banning the industrial harvest of menhaden from state waters.

revealing that coastal colonies were reproducing before levels needed to sustain the population (as inland colonies thrived).

Decades later, In July 1997, a headline in the New York Times warned “Ospreys May Be Starving.” That year, biologists surveying the growing population, observed high nest failure rates along the Atlantic coast,

By the mid-1960s, offshore trawlers had replaced the pound nets, coinciding the disappearance of menhaden and the decline of ospreys. In the late 1960s, the osprey population crashed to their historic low of only 50 pairs and were one of the first species listed as endangered.

New Jersey ospreys have faced similar crises before. In the mid-1950s, Herbert Mills, founder of The Wetlands Institute who served as the Ex Dir of the World Wildlife Fund, recounted that “until the mid-1950s, observation of Ospreys fishing or carrying fish, especially Menhaden, were commonplace.”

What I can tell you from the ground in coastal New Jersey is that over the last several years, we have observed a marked increase in food stress. This happens when adults cannot find enough prey to sustain their brood and successfully fledge young. It is not a new phenomenon.

Some are pointing fingers at eagles, pollution, contamination, disease, and climate change, while others argue the population is simply hitting carrying capacity.