Saving Seafood

Commercial shrimp fishing could be coming to Virginia Beach

June 25, 2021 — Virginia could open a small commercial shrimp fishery off Virginia Beach, after a four-year experiment showed it is ecologically sustainable and commercially viable.

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission plans to hold a public hearing July 27 to consider proposed regulations to allow trawling for shrimp. Unlike the shrimpers operating to the south, Virginia fishermen would be allowed to tow only small nets, to reduce the chance of trapping too many other species.

“This will be a small-boat, small-gear fishery,” Pat Geer, VMRC’s Fisheries Management Division chief told the commission in a recent briefing.

While shrimp have been seen in Virginia waters for years, fishermen began reporting large numbers of them in 2017.

Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot

University of Maryland environmental scientists give the Chesapeake Bay a C on health report

June 23, 2021 — After two straight year’s of declines due to record rainfall in 2018, the Chesapeake Bay’s health improved slightly in 2020, according to a report from the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science.

The center’s grade for the estuary ticked up from a C- back to a C. The entire watershed received a B- for the second straight year.

The grade is based on measurements of phosphorous, nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, water clarity, aquatic grasses and bottom-dwellers.

Officials dubbed the data a mixed bag. For instance, the bay’s dissolved oxygen and nitrogen levels improved, but the scores for chlorophyll and phosphorous worsened. Water clarity, too, remains poor.

Read the full story at The Baltimore Sun

Crab Supply Pricing Out Delaware Restaurants as Some Crabbers Find Success Another Way

June 17, 2021 — For many Delaware families, summer means picnic tables full of steamed blue claw crabs or crab cake dinners at a favorite restaurant. But this summer, those same crabs will cost much higher prices, if you can find them at all while dining out.

Mrs. Robino’s, an Italian restaurant in Wilmington, for example, has temporarily cancelled their popular Thursday crab nights because of problems getting enough crab meat and the cost with the crab they can get their hands on.

“Now, it’s to the point where it’s just so expensive, it’s like tripled in price just about,” Andrea Wakefield of Mrs. Robino’s said.

Two issues are playing havoc with blue crab in Delaware: supply chain disruptions still upending shipping of crabs from places like Louisiana and North Carolina, where the crabs are caught in the winter months; and more locally, an inability to find crabbing manpower in the Chesapeake Bay region of Maryland and Delaware. The Chesapeake Bay crabbing industry also got off to a slow start this year due to lower numbers of adult crabs, but experts say that it isn’t a dire situation longterm.

The problems have combined to create a shortage and high prices for restaurants.

Read the full story at NBC 10

Picture of Chesapeake microplastics grows clearer

June 14, 2021 — Scientists have long suspected that the tiny plastic particles floating in the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers — consumed by a growing number of aquatic species — are anything but harmless.

Now, studies by a regional workgroup are beginning to clarify the connections between the presence of microplastics and the harm they could be causing in the Bay region. This research, combined with international interest in microplastics, is setting the stage for more informed management decisions and a flurry of additional studies.

Globally, microplastics have been found in the air we breathe, the food we eat and in human organs — even in mothers’ placentas. It’s possible that humans are ingesting a credit card’s worth of microplastics every week. One of the ways people consume plastics is by eating seafood, though the tiny particles can also be swirling around in tap and bottled water. Assessing the risk of plastic consumption by humans is one important research goal.

In the Chesapeake Bay region, researchers also want to understand how microplastics could be impacting local ecosystems and aquatic species. A workgroup of the Chesapeake Bay Program, a state-federal partnership that leads the Bay restoration effort, identified microplastics in 2018 as a contaminant of mounting concern. A 2014 survey of four tidal tributaries to the Bay found microplastics in 59 out of 60 samples of various marine animals, with higher concentrations near urban areas. A Bay survey the next year found them in every sample collected.

Read the full story at The Bay Journal

New rockfish moratorium possible warns architect of ban that saved species 36 years ago

June 10, 2021 — The architect of a historic fishing moratorium that saved the rockfish in the Chesapeake Bay nearly 36 years ago is warning that it could happen again.

Former Maryland State Senator Gerald Winegrad told WUSA9 Wednesday that efforts to stop an alarming slide in the population of rockfish are not working and action has to be taken now.

It is a drastic prediction, because the iconic Chesapeake Bay species amount to a half-billion-dollar industry in the Eastern U.S., according to one study for a recreational fishing organization.

“It’s a potential if we wait two, three, or four years to really start cracking down on the harvest,” Winegrad said. “It is a potential that we would be forced into such a drastic measure.”

“Back in the 1980’s we were experiencing similar declines,” he added.

The famous five-year rockfish moratorium engineered by Winegrad and supporters in 1985 is credited with saving the species from complete collapse.

Read the full story at WUSA 9

MIKE SPINNEY: The gradual and sudden decline of striped bass

May 19, 2021 — Striped bass, also known as rockfish, are arguably the most economically important finfish on the Atlantic seaboard. According to a 2005 economic study by Southwick Associates, commercial and recreational fishing for stripers generated more than $6.8 billion in total economic activity, supporting more than 68,000 jobs. At the time, striped bass were abundant in the Chesapeake Bay and throughout their migratory range, from North Carolina to Maine.

Twenty years earlier, striped bass were practically nonexistent. Scooped up in commercial nets and plucked by rod and reel by a growing number of recreational anglers throughout the 1970s, stripers had been fished to the brink of oblivion when a moratorium was enacted in 1985. Remarkably, once left alone to reproduce in the Chesapeake and Delaware bays, as well as the Hudson River, the fish were spawning in record numbers. In 1995, five years after the moratorium was lifted, the species was declared “fully recovered” by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the interstate body tasked with managing them.

The rebound was touted as a success. Rockfish became a symbol of the ASMFC’s fisheries management prowess. But almost as soon as the commission resumed the task of allotting states their portion of the striped bass pie, things started to go downhill until, in 2019, the commission declared striped bass overfished.

Read the full opinion piece at the Chesapeake Bay Journal

Omega trims Atlantic steamer fleet with conversion; pound-net skiff gets overhaul at Virginia railway

May 3, 2021 — With the help of Ampro Shipyard in Weems, Va., Omega Protein in Reedville is busy getting its menhaden fishing fleet ready for Virginia’s 2021 menhaden fishing season. The season opened in May.

Omega recently announced it’s cutting back on its Chesapeake Bay fishing fleet, as six boats will be fishing this season. Last year, the firm had seven menhaden steamers working Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

The Tideland, one of the largest and oldest vessels in the fleet, will leave the fishing end of the business. It will remain in the fleet, however, as a carry-away boat. The 218-foot Tideland was launched in 1966. “She has caught a jag of fish in her lifetime,” said Omega’s Reedville Vessels Manager Harvey Hamm.

Tideland will require only a minor conversion to switch from fishing boat to carry-away boat. It will require installation of new pumps, modification of the hydraulic system and some new stainless steel piping.

The work will be done with the boat in-water at the Omega Reedville plant by way of a partnership between the Ampro work force and Omega’s boat maintenance crew. “We rely on Ampro to do a lot of our work,” said Hamm. “When we have a need we can count on them coming to our place to jump in and take care of the problem.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Using Science to Support the Chesapeake Bay’s Rockfish Population

April 29, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Heading out on the Chesapeake Bay for trophy rockfish season is a treasured rite of spring for recreational anglers. In the Chesapeake, fishermen often call striped bass “rockfish” because these fish often hang out near oyster reef “rocks.”

But this year, the spring season will be a bit diminished in the Chesapeake with a later start, and fewer days, that has been the case in the past. Changes implemented by Maryland and Virginia in 2019 will continue in 2021. This is part of a broader effort to help the striped bass population rebound.

Reports from anglers and fishermen and scientific data both indicate that the population is declining. Analyses by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission show that the striped bass population along the Atlantic Coast is decreasing. Every year, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources reports on the species by tracking an index of juvenile striped bass. The survey was started in 1954. Since then, the average index is 11.5 (arithmetic mean catch per haul); the index in fall 2020 was 2.5. In the last decade, six years have been below average. That means there are fewer fish to grow into the spawning stock.

Read the full release here

NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office Shares Biennial Report to Congress

April 9, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office’s Biennial Report to Congress (pdf, 9 pages) includes a snapshot of work we accomplished during fiscal years 2019 and 2020. Highlights include:

  • Completing the restoration of 350 acres of oyster reef in the Little Choptank River in Maryland—the largest oyster restoration project in the world to date.
  • Maintaining a system of buoys that allow for near-real-time observations of the Bay’s changing water and weather conditions.
  • Providing $5.2 million in funding to support watershed education for 53,000 students and 1,700 teachers.
  • Funded fish and habitat science with a focus on state and federal fisheries management needs for striped bass, summer flounder, black sea bass, and invasive blue catfish.
  • Supporting the design of three nearshore habitat restoration projects in coastal Virginia, which will enhance coastal resiliency and provide habitat for commercially and recreationally important fish.

For more details and to learn about other aspects of our work in fisheries and habitat science, restoration, climate, education, and more, we invite you to read through the report.

Maryland Rockfish Limits Set, Including July Closure

March 30, 2021 — After proposals and public comment, we now know what rockfish limits will look like in Maryland this season.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) issued striped bass harvest regulations for recreational anglers and charter boat clients for the summer and fall fishery, May 16–Dec. 10, 2021. This year will be a split season, closing Maryland waters to all striper fishing July 16–31. No private anglers or charter boat guests and crews may target striped bass, even catch-and-release, during those two weeks.

DNR designed this seasonal closure to avoid the period when water quality and high temperatures are most stressful and harmful to striped bass in the upper Bay, according to DNR’s own data. Virginia and D.C. also have seasonal closures: Virginia closes its striped bass season for the lower Chesapeake from June 15 to October 4, while the Potomac River is closed to all targeting of striped bass fishing from July 7 through August 20.

Outside of the Maryland summer closure period, private recreational anglers may keep one striped bass per day, with a minimum size of 19 inches. Charter boat clients may keep two stripers per day, with a minimum size of 19 inches, provided the boat’s captain participates in DNR’s daily electronic reporting system. During any chartered fishing trip, neither the captain nor mate may land or possess rockfish for personal consumption.

Read the full story at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine