For more than a decade, environmentalists and sportsmen have asked the state to ban industrial fishing for menhaden – a tiny, oil-rich fish that feeds striped bass, bluefish, marine birds and mammals.
This year, a company that uses menhaden in fish oil supplements gave some $2,700 dollars in campaign contributions to Democrats — and ten times that much to Republicans, according to data from the Virginia Public Access Project.
But as Sandy Hausman reports, a member of the GOP is now leading the charge to end menhaden fishing in the Chesapeake Bay.
Virginia Public Radio 