This is believed to be due to the overfishing of Menhaden for their fish oil. This could seriously disrupt the food chain. In response, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) put a cap on the Atlantic Menhaden harvest in October of 2020. This 10% cut to the harvest is the first to ever be seen for Menhaden coast wide. It also was the first vote to consider benchmarks known as “ecological reference points”. This allows managers to account for a species role in the food chain when setting catch limits. This is different from the “single-species stock assessments” that were previously used which only accounted for the demand from the fishing industry rather than the demand from the food web. This cut to the harvest established a quota of 194,400 metric tons of Menhaden for the 2021-2022 fishing season. It is the hope that this cut will allow Menhaden to fulfill their role in the ecosystem while keeping the commercial fishery alive.