Osprey breeding continues to falter around the Chesapeake Bay, a new survey has found, with the meager hatching and survival of chicks this year well below what is needed to maintain the population.
The Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William & Mary reported Sept. 14 that the 2026 osprey breeding season in the Chesapeake region was the worst recorded to date. The center began reporting the decline of osprey breeding in Virginia’s Mobjack Bay several years ago but expanded the nest checks Baywide starting in 2024.
This year, biologists and volunteers from nine different state and federal agencies, academic institutions and nonprofit organizations monitored 937 osprey pairs in 23 areas of the Bay from March through August.
Roughly four out of every five pairs that nested in brackish waters along the Bay’s mainstem and its lower tributaries failed to fledge any young, according to Bryan Watts, the center’s director. Birds migrating to those waters in the spring produced just 0.25 chicks per pair, Watts said, which is far below the range of 0.8 to 1.3 young per nest needed to maintain their numbers.
Credit: Dave Harp
The Chesapeake Bay harbors the largest osprey breeding population in the world, but the current nesting slump is worse than what it was when widespread DDT pesticide poisoning decimated their numbers in the 1970s, Watts said.
“Given the poor reproductive rates recorded in recent years, this population is not sustainable,” Watts said. He first raised that specter in 2025, but in this report warned that unless things change, the Bay’s ospreys could decline by 50% over the next decade.
The survey report comes as East Coast fishery managers are being pressed by sports anglers and conservationists to slash the large-scale commercial harvest of Atlantic menhaden in the Bay.
The nest survey report heightens concerns voiced in recent years by conservationists that ospreys may be struggling to reproduce because there aren’t enough menhaden in the Bay to sustain them. Menhaden are a nutrient-rich “keystone prey species” for many ospreys in the Bay, Watts said, and survey results this year and earlier have indicated the birds’ nesting failure stems from “food stress.” Among the evidence he cited: female ospreys laying fewer or even no eggs, emaciated chicks and even some young starved to death in the nest.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is scheduled to vote in November on a plan that would impose new limits on the Virginia-based fishing fleet that harvests menhaden for reduction, or processing into animal feed and human dietary supplements. The commission, which regulates the near-share catch of migratory fish, is considering lowering that fleet’s Bay harvest by up to 50% and distributing that harvest more evenly from spring through fall.
A six-vessel fleet operated by Ocean Harvesters pursues menhaden with the aid of spotter airplanes in coastal waters and in Virginia’s portion of the Bay; Maryland does not permit it. The fleet’s catch is landed in Reedville, VA, for processing at a plant there owned by Omega Protein.
Credit: Dave Harp
That reduction fishery has long been controversial, especially in the Bay, which is a prime nursery area for the coastal menhaden stock. Conservationists and sports anglers contend that the Ocean Harvesters fleet leaves too few fish in the water for striped bass and other creatures to sustain themselves. Osprey lovers have joined the chorus in calling for the menhaden harvest to be limited.
In some parts of the Chesapeake, Watts said, the ospreys’ diet has shifted radically away from relying on menhaden, leading to smaller broods and more nesting failures. Ospreys that nested in fresher water up the Chester, Patuxent, Potomac and James rivers, where the birds can prey on fish other than menhaden, fared better. But the vast majority of the nests in menhaden-dependent brackish water, and their reproductive woes, outweighed the success of others upriver.
While many recreational anglers and conservationists blame Ocean Harvesters for the apparent shortage of menhaden to feed striped bass and ospreys, some fishery scientists say there is no solid evidence to support those claims.
In this report, Watts demurred from pointing fingers.
“The underlying causes of reduced availability of menhaden to osprey are not clear,“ he wrote. Besides commercial harvest, he cited factors such as climate change and changes in the distribution or migration patterns of menhaden that might be delaying their entry into the Bay in spring, when nesting ospreys need them most.
“Ospreys are unable to successfully adjust their breeding chronology when large numbers of menhaden do not arrive until late June or July,” he noted.
Ocean Harvesters responded to the survey report by stressing that Watts did not say what was causing ospreys’ food stress. Other factors could also affect the birds’ reproductive success, it said, such as storms, heat stress and competition from other species for prey.
The company also pointed out that its fleet is not allowed to begin fishing in Virginia waters until early May, and that in 2026 it did not begin until early June. Nor are osprey nesting declines limited to the Chesapeake, it noted, citing reports from elsewhere along the East Coast and even on the Pacific Coast.
“We are not disputing the reproductive conditions reported by the center,” Ocean Harvesters said. “The point is simply that neither [the center] nor [the U.S. Geological Survey] has established that commercial menhaden fishing caused them.”
A 2025 assessment by fisheries experts found that the coastwide menhaden population is not overfished, but it did not look specifically at conditions in the Chesapeake. Sports anglers, environmentalists and some scientists contend that the reduction fishery may be causing or contributing to a localized depletion in the Bay. Federal and state funding has been provided to conduct such a study, though it could take several years to conclude.