May 6, 2020 — Fisheries along the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia are, like many other fisheries in the country, facing an economic crisis as restaurant shutdowns cause decreases in demand.
The region’s two most iconic fisheries – blue crab and oysters – are both being hit by COVID-19-based restaurant closures that caused a rapid drop in demand. Restaurants account for 70 percent or more of the demand for the two species, with retail channels unable to make up the demand gap.
May 1, 2020 — Crab season is off to a slow and foreboding start around the Chesapeake Bay, with many crabmeat processors crippled by an inability to import seasonal workers and by watermen worried they’ll be unable to sell all they can catch as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Chilly, windy weather limited commercial harvests of blue crabs through much of April, the first full month of the season. Warming spring weather usually brings better fortunes, but those in the business of catching or picking crabs say they fear for their livelihoods amid the double whammy that’s hit the Bay’s most valuable fishery.
“It’s kind of a really scary situation,” said Bill Sieling, executive vice president of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, which represents Maryland companies. “It just doesn’t look good.”
Read the full story from the Chesapeake Bay Journal at Patch.com
April 3, 2020 — A company that makes fish-oil supplements will keep its certification for sustainable fishing despite defiance of catch limits in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Marine Stewardship Council’s sustainability marker is prominently displayed on seafood packages in grocery stores. It means a company catches fish from a healthy population and leaves little impact on the food chain, among other factors.
Maintaining the designation is a victory for Omega Protein. But it stokes an ongoing debate over labels that boast environmental responsibility. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation said the development is “a serious black eye” for the certification.
March 27, 2020 — Watermen have no restaurants that can buy their catches. Help for farmers who want to install runoff controls has been sharply curtailed. Streams throughout the region are missing their annual spring cleaning. And many students are losing their chance to experience the Chesapeake Bay firsthand.
The impact of the novel coronavirus, barely on the radar only a few months ago, is rippling through the Chesapeake Bay region, with impacts felt from Pennsylvania farm fields to Eastern Shore oyster grounds. While some impacts are minor, such as the postponement of meetings and cleanup events, others could become significant if the COVID-19 crisis lingers, potentially creating another setback for Bay pollution control initiatives.
While some point to slivers of positive news — air pollution is down — the near-shutdown of business activity is likely to slam state budgets in coming months, and possibly years, at a time when they had hoped to significantly increase spending on the Bay cleanup.
March 27, 2020 — The Chesapeake Bay’s seafood industry has been especially hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, as buyers dry up for oysters and prices plummet for fish and crabs.
Watermen say they’ve given up on the final weeks of the oyster season, as restaurant and raw bar closures have deprived them of lucrative markets for their catch.
“It’s very drastic,” said Robert T. Brown Sr., president of the Maryland Watermen’s Association. “I’ve seen things bad, but I’ve never seen them like this before.”
Oyster farmers say they’re idled for the same reason, though some are trying to eke out some direct sales to consumers. Ted Cooney, founder of Madhouse Oysters on Hooper’s Island on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, said sales suddenly stopped at a time when they’re usually selling 100 or more boxes of bivalves every week.
March 20, 2020 — Responding to employers’ calls, including those of crab meat processing companies in Virginia and Maryland, the federal government announced March 5 that it would release an additional 35,000 temporary visas for foreign workers.
That still may not be enough to quench the Chesapeake Bay seafood houses’ demand for temporary workers, according to the trade group that represents the industry. And they may still arrive too late to help much or perhaps get stuck on the other side of the border, as the United States today closed its Mexican border for unessential travel because of coronavirus concerns.
Several seafood company owners and watermen had implored the Trump administration to issue 64,000 more visas, the cap set by Congress.
Jack Brooks, co-owner of J.M. Clayton Seafood Co. in Cambridge, MD, and president of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, said he expects a worker shortfall, despite the government’s action.
March 4, 2020 — Maryland and Virginia seafood industry leaders say they won’t have enough workers to process crabs this season unless the federal government once again raises its cap on temporary foreign workers.
Federal immigration officials announced last month that they had doled out the national limit of 33,000 work visas, which are in effect for six months beginning April 1. That was far short of the nearly 100,000 slots that employers had sought to fill.
In Maryland, seafood processors say they received roughly one-third of the 450 visas they need for this season, which also kicks off April 1. The shortage, they warn, could force some of the affected processing plants to close their doors for this season, with the possibility that they might never reopen because their customers and suppliers will have moved on.
Several dozen watermen, crab industry leaders and local elected officials gathered March 2 inside a picking house on Hooper’s Island in rural Dorchester County, MD, to passionately plea for the Trump administration to release 64,000 more visas, the limit set by Congress on how many can be added.
March 2, 2020 — Omega Protein officially announced on Monday, 2 March, that it completed moving its corporate headquarters from Houston, Texas, U.S.A., to Reedville, Virginia.
The company, a division of Canadian-based Cooke Inc., has a history in the Chesapeake Bay community dating back more than 100 years. As part of the effort to move corporate operations to Reedville, Omega Protein invested USD 1.3 million (EUR 1.2 million) in restoring the 1930s-era headquarters of an old fishing company in the region.
February 11, 2020 — For a guy who left school after 11th grade, George Ball figures he has the best-paying job available on this rural stretch of Chesapeake Bay shoreline.
He catches a fish called Atlantic menhaden, used to make fish oil pills and farm-raised salmon feed, and earns about $50,000 a season, as much money as some college graduates.
“There ain’t a whole lot of jobs around here for a person like myself, except for landscaping or something like that,” said Ball, who comes from a long line of black fishermen. “Starting over would be treacherous.”
He may have to, though.
Ball works for Omega Protein, a company facing increasing government restrictions amid criticism that it could be disrupting the Chesapeake Bay’s food chain. Last year, Omega Protein exceeded catch limits in the Chesapeake by more than 30%, prompting the Trump Administration to threaten a moratorium in Virginia waters.
The firm’s sustainability certification from the influential Marine Stewardship Council is now under review. And environmental groups, sport fishermen and some state lawmakers have grown louder in their calls to further restrict — if not shutter — the firm’s operations in the bay.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New York Times
February 6, 2020 — Anglers in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries will be limited to landing just one striped bass a day under new rules approved this week by East Coast fishery managers.
The only exception is in Maryland, where state officials plan to let those who can afford to pay for charter fishing trips bring home two of the highly prized rockfish, as they are known in the Bay.
And there’s still more controversy about Maryland’s plan to stem the slide of the East Coast’s most popular finfish. The state has shortened but not closed its spring “trophy season,” when anglers can go after the biggest of the species, even though those happen to be the most productive spawners. And the state is planning to crack down on anglers who “target” rockfish for catch-and-release during times when it’s illegal to keep them.