The Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) is a North American species of fish in the herring family, Alosidae.

[4] Atlantic menhaden are silvery coloured fishes characterized by a moderately compressed body and a black spot on their shoulder behind their gill openings.

As they age and their gill rakers grow larger, menhaden shift their diet to primarily consume phytoplankton.

[4] Atlantic menhaden are preyed upon by fish such as striped bass, weakfish and bluefish, and by birds such as ospreys and eagles.

It is likely that menhaden is the fish that Squanto taught the Pilgrims to bury alongside freshly planted seeds as fertilizer.

[19] The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has cited the Atlantic and Gulf menhaden fisheries as having one of the lowest levels of bycatch in the world.

[20] The reduction fishery is largely based in the Chesapeake Bay and nearby Atlantic waters, and its season runs annually starting in May through the fall.

[22] This is both due to the healthy status of the stock as well as the fishery's low levels of bycatch, which it achieves with the use of purse seine nets.

[25] This culminated the development of Amendment 2 to the menhaden Fishery Management Plan that established a total allowable catch (TAC) of 170,800 metric tons (376,549,544 pounds), effectively reducing the coastwide harvest by 20 percent compared to average landings from 2009 to 2011.

The TAC created the first ever coastwide catch limit, though the ASMFC had earlier instituted a harvest cap on the number of menhaden that can be caught in the Chesapeake Bay to address concerns of localized depletion.

[30] The ASMFC unanimously accepted the stock assessment to use for management in May 2015 and increased the TAC to 187,880 metric tons (414,204,498 pounds).

They also voted to begin Amendment 3 to consider changes to the current state-by-state allocation scheme and establish ecological reference points to help them, as Menhaden Management Board Chair Robert Boyles stated in the ASFMC's May 6, 2015 press release, fully evaluat[e] the ecological role of Atlantic menhaden through the amendment process.”[31] While popularly cited as filter feeders that remove excess algae and nutrients from the water, evidence suggests that menhaden do not significantly impact water quality.

Adult menhaden largely do not eat phytoplankton, whose excessive growth leads to dead zones, instead feeding mainly on zooplankton.

[34] Due to the change in striped bass population many have begun to cite the commercial harvesting of menhaden as the reasoning behind the shift.

However, other studies see the striped bass as an opportunistic feeder with a variety of aquatic creatures that it consumes and therefore does not completely rely on the menhaden.