For unknown reasons, the population of winter flounder, also called blackback flounder, has declined dramatically in recent years. Surveys conducted three years ago by the National Marine Fisheries Service concluded that the spawning stock biomass of the species in the Southern New England-Middle Atlantic area was only 9 percent of where fishery managers believed it should be.

For several years, Norman Edwards Jr., a town trustee who operates a small dragger in local waters, has been leading the trustees’ efforts to bolster the stock by farming flounder from larvae and then releasing them into the wild once they are old enough to elude predators.

Read the story in full from the East Hampton Star.