Saving Seafood

MARYLAND: Oyster study bill advances despite watermen objections

April 5, 2016 — State fisheries managers use science-backed information to determine how many striped bass, blue crabs and menhaden can be caught each season without damaging the overall health of each species.

But not the Chesapeake Bay’s oysters.

A bill passed by the Maryland Senate and pending before the House would require University of Maryland scientists to establish harvest limits that ensure a sustainable catch for years to come. Representatives of the seafood industry are branding the measure as costly and unnecessary.

The bill’s supporters, however, say Maryland’s oyster population is being overfished, pointing to estimates that it is 1 percent of its historic size.

“We’ve learned the hard way that nature, especially with these oysters, is not inexhaustible,” said Bill Goldsborough, a fisheries scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “So this attitude, this disregard for science, led to the depletion of this valuable resource and the unstable boom-and-bust pattern of fishery that we see today.”

Maryland’s oyster haul plummeted from an all-time high of 15 million bushels in the 1880s to 26,000 bushels in 2004. After surpassing 100,000 for several years, the total harvest rocketed above 300,000 in 2013 and 2014. Researchers attribute the jump to hearty reproduction in 2010 and 2012.

The size of oyster catch this season, which officially ended Thursday, is expected to be lower again, reflecting poorer reproduction in subsequent years.

Read the full story at Delmarva Now

Maryland Wants to Take shells for oyster project from prime fishing reef

MARYLAND – March 22, 2016 — Seeking to counter a shortage of oyster habitat in the Chesapeake Bay, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources is renewing a controversial bid to dredge old shells that have built up over centuries from an ancient reef southeast of Baltimore. Reviving a plan abandoned in 2009, the DNR has applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a permit to take 5 million bushels of shells from Man-O-War shoal just beyond the mouth of the Patapsco River. Ultimately, though, the state wants to barge away 30 million bushels, or about a third of the 456-acre reef.

The shells are needed to replace or augment oyster reefs worn down by harvesting and buried under an accumulation of silt, the DNR said. State officials said they would use much of the dredged shell in future large-scale, restoration projects. Some would also go to help the public fishery, though and to assist oyster farmers growing bivalves on leased plots of the Bay and its tributaries.

But the DNR’s request is drawing flak from conservationists, fishermen and even some watermen who might benefit.

Read the full story at ODU Magazine.

MARYLAND: New seafood industry group lobbies against oyster project

MARYLAND – March 22, 2016 –A new group has emerged to speak for the seafood industry in contentious Chesapeake Bay fisheries issues, and it’s already being heard in Maryland on oyster restoration.

The Delmarva Fisheries Association formed last year with the stated intent of bringing together watermen, restaurant owners, packing houses, oyster farmers and boat captains.

Capt. Robert Newberry, the association’s president and founder, used to oyster in the Upper Bay and is now a charter boat captain and a hunting guide. He said he wanted to form a group that would unite the seafood industry.

One of their first priorities, he said, was getting Maryland’s governor to take a closer look at the oyster reef construction project in the Tred Avon, which is part of an effort to restore bivalves in three of the state’s tributaries that will cost tens of millions of dollars. All three have been designated sanctuaries, off-limits to commercial harvesting.

See the full story at the Bay Journal

Chesapeake Bay Nothing Like Caribbean

February 14, 2016 — In his letter, “Menhaden are critical for bay restoration,” Tscharner D. Watkins III begins with a protracted discussion of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem before resorting to hyperbole. Referring to the menhaden, he states “these filter feeders kept our waters clear, much like the waters in the Caribbean.”

The Chesapeake Bay is a tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean — which is also fed by more than 150 streams and rivers within its watershed, emanating from six states and the District of Columbia. Thus it contains the same saline waters of the Atlantic, but has not borne within the past (nor does it continue to bear) any resemblance to the more pristine waters of the Caribbean Sea.

The marine dead zones are hypoxic waters which are so depleted of oxygen that they are unable to support life, resulting oftentimes in massive fish kills. The oxygen-robbing algal blooms which are symptomatic of the hypoxia are caused by the problematic runoff of residential, agricultural and industrial effluent throughout the watershed. Therefore, the menhaden are ill-affected by the disruption in the marine food chain, but should not necessarily be regarded as the root cause of the hypoxia.

Read the full letter at the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Omega Protein Upholds ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’, Avoids Fishing Near Virginia Beach

January 29, 2016 — The following was released by the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition:

In July of last year, Menhaden Fisheries Coalition member Omega Protein met with recreational fishermen from the Virginia Beach area to discuss and resolve potential issues arising from menhaden fishing in the area. At the summer meeting, the two groups reached an informal agreement, whereby Omega Protein would not fish within three miles of shore of an area extending from Cape Henry Lighthouse to the Sandbridge fishing pier, some of Virginia Beach’s most popular tourist areas (See the image below, taken from this WAVY report).

 

Since then, Omega Protein has kept its promise to avoid these areas. The images below are maps of menhaden fishing activity in the Virginia Beach area, provided by the Beaufort Laboratory of NOAA’s National Marine Fishing Service.

Press accounts in December 2015 referenced sightings of Omega Protein vessels fishing offshore in the vicinity of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel in Virginia Beach as evidence that the agreement was violated. In fact, any sightings of fishing vessels in that locale would have been outside the agreed-upon area, and well within legally regulated fishing zones.
The image on the left shows fishing activity through July 2015, before the agreement was reached. The image on the right shows activity from the end of July through remainder of the 2015 fishing season. Since the agreement was entered into, there has been no menhaden fishing in the Virginia Beach three-mile buffer zone; all menhaden fishing activity in southern Virginia has taken place outside of the agreed-upon off-limits area. As shown in these maps, Omega Protein vessels adhered to the “Gentlemen’s agreement” for the remainder of the fishing season.

Removal of derelict fishing gear has major economic impact

January 22, 2016— A new study by researchers at William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science shows that removal of derelict fishing gear could generate millions of dollars in extra harvest value for commercial fisheries worldwide.

The study focused on a 6-year, collaborative program to remove derelict crab pots from Chesapeake Bay, showing that the effort generated more than $20 million in harvest value for area watermen.

Extending their methodology to estimate the economic benefits of removing derelict crab pots and lobster traps on a global basis, the researchers showed that removal of even 10% of derelict pots and traps from major crustacean fisheries—the percentage of the Bay’s derelict pots they estimate were removed by the VIMS program—could increase landings by 293,929 metric tons, at a value of $831 million annually.

Read the full story at Phys.org

These fish started life as boys. Now scientists aren’t sure what sex they are.

For male smallmouth bass, sex change is increasingly not an option. In the chemical-laced Chesapeake Bay watershed and in rivers up through New England, it comes with the territory.

Based on the latest U.S. Geological Survey on intersex fish, 85 percent of male smallmouth bass in waters in and around national wildlife refuges in the Northeast have developed “characteristics of the opposite sex.” That’s in addition to 90 percent of the species in some West Virginia waters and 50 percent to 100 percent in the southern stretch of the Potomac River. All of the affected fish had eggs where their testes should be, according to previous studies.

Why this is happening remains a mystery, says the lead author of a new study, despite the problem being detected more than a decade ago. “It is not clear what the specific cause of intersex is in these fish,” said Luke Iwanowicz, a USGS research biologist. “This study was designed to identify locations that may warrant further investigation.”

Read the full story from the Washington Post

Could invasive lionfish end up in Chesapeake Bay?

December 29, 2015 — Few fish are as lovely as the lionfish. Few are as venomous.

A frilly, colorful native of the clear tropical waters and reefs of the South Pacific and Indian oceans, the lionfish has been a favorite of aquarium hobbyists for years.

In the Atlantic, however, it was unknown.

Then in the 1980s genetic researchers believe a handful of hobbyists in Florida, perhaps thinking it a kindness, released their aquarium pets into the wild ocean.

At that point, the lionfish proved they aren’t just lovely and venomous — they also breed like rabbits on Viagra. Ravenous eaters, they gobble up any smaller fish they spot and easily displace native species. And because nothing in this part of the Atlantic recognizes them as prey, their population has exploded into a serious and unfortunate marine invasion.

“It’s gotten really bad,” said Richard Brill, fishery biologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point.

“There’ve been some efforts in Florida and some parts of the Caribbean to get people to eat them. And there’s been some efforts — and this is pretty crazy — but groups of recreational spear fishermen have been spearing them and then feeding what they catch to sharks, trying to convince the local shark population to eat these things.”

The hardy little invaders have established year-round populations from the Gulf of Mexico to the Outer Banks. They’ve been spotted in warmer months as far north as Massachusetts, although they can’t survive the northern winters.

Read the full story at the Hampton Roads Daily Press

 

Scientists worry that the Chesapeake’s natural shoreline is turning into a wall

December 26, 2015 — On the banks of the Potomac River, construction cranes that look like metal dinosaurs tower over Southwest Washington. They swivel in all directions, delivering concrete and other heavy material to workers building a large development behind a steel-and-concrete wall that holds back the water.

Within two years, the Wharf will begin emerging as a playground of trendy apartments, shops and entertainment venues. But below the river’s surface, animals that depend on vegetation in the water may continue to struggle, marine scientists say.

The Wharf is part of the great wall of the Chesapeake Bay. Because of development along the bay and its rivers, vast swaths of soft shorelines have been turned into stone. The spread of what scientists call “the armored shore” is depriving young fish, crabs and other organisms of food and shelter. And it is yet another reason why life in the bay is disappearing, according to new research funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Houses, offices, bike paths, marinas — and walls built to protect them from erosion and rising sea levels — are replacing marshy shores, uprooting plants that young fish, crabs and other organisms use for food.

Read the full story at The Washington Post