Bruce Franklin was Right about Menhaden The Science Finally Proves It

 A world-leading fisheries scientist now backs Franklin’s case with hard data. That’s what we should be talking about.

Bruce Franklin was a dear friend of mine. He passed away last year. So, when I read Charles Witek’s recent column dismissing Franklin’s The Most Important Fish in the Sea by dredging up decades-old political activism and painting him as a “radical,” I was more than disappointed — I was appalled.

 Bruce Franklin and Paul Eidman

You don’t win an ecological argument by attacking someone’s résumé or political history, especially when that person is no longer here to respond. You win it with science. And on the science, Franklin’s warnings have now been vindicated.

The Man Witek Ignores: Dr. Jerald Ault

If Witek truly believed in “good science and good data,” he’d be talking about Dr. Jerald Ault, Professor Emeritus of Fishery Management Science at the University of Miami — not Franklin’s time as a Stanford professor in the 1970s.

Ault’s credentials are unimpeachable: 30+ years developing stock assessment methods, peer-reviewed publications in the world’s top fisheries journals, and international recognition for his Length-Based Risk Analysis as the top-performing method for data-limited fisheries.

Franklin’s Predictions, Ault’s Proof

In 2007, Franklin warned that industrial menhaden fishing would:

• Harm predator populations.
• Create ecosystem imbalances.
• Rely on flawed stock assessments that overestimated population health.

In 2025, Ault’s research confirms:

• Atlantic menhaden are likely overfished.
• Striped bass are both overfished and experiencing overfishing.
• Current stock assessments may overestimate biomass by up to 400%.
• The ASMFC has been forced to adopt ecosystem-based management — exactly what Franklin called for.

This isn’t nostalgia for a late friend’s work. It’s peer-reviewed science proving that he was right.

The Mississippi Study Misses the Point

Witek leans heavily on a University of Southern Mississippi study showing Gulf predators eat a variety of prey. That’s hardly news to anyone who’s cut open a striped bass, bluefish, or weakfish. But the study is about the Gulf — a completely different ecosystem.

Franklin’s book was about Atlantic menhaden and their central role in that ecosystem’s productivity. Ault’s work isn’t about “what’s in a fish’s stomach today” — it’s about population risk and the systemic collapse that follows when a keystone forage species is overfished.

The Real Irony

Witek dismisses Franklin because he had an English degree. But when one of the world’s leading fisheries scientists backs Franklin’s conclusions with hard math, suddenly credentials don’t seem to matter. That’s not science — that’s selective hearing.

Time to Focus on What Matters

We can debate how to manage menhaden. But let’s do it based on data, not personal attacks. Franklin deserves better than to be caricatured in death, and the science — from Dr. Ault and others — demands we stop treating this as an abstract fight.

The health of our fisheries depends on it.

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Capt. Paul Eidman is the founder of Menhaden Defenders, a non-profit organization with a focus on Menhaden conservation.