Saving Seafood

‘There’s going to be no fish to fight over at all’: The Chesapeake Bay’s rockfish population is falling

April 28, 2019 — It’s trophy season for Chesapeake Bay rockfish, the only few weeks on the calendar local anglers can hunt for the 40-pound specimens visiting the estuary to spawn. But this year, it’s not as celebratory as it sounds.

Three decades after an outright ban on fishing for the species properly known as Atlantic striped bass helped it recover from near-extinction, scientists, anglers and the commercial fishing industry are raising alarms that the bay’s supreme and delectable swimmers are again being overfished. And about half of the fish that anglers are killing aren’t even being eaten — they’re caught and thrown back, only to die from their wounds.

The concerns prompted Virginia to cancel its trophy season Tuesday, six days before fishing was set to begin in some Potomac River tributaries. Authorities there said emergency action was needed to allow as many of the females to spawn as possible.

Maryland officials said they have no plans to make a similar decision this spring. But commercial and recreational fishermen around the state’s rivers and creeks are nonetheless hoping, and bracing, for new restrictions to stabilize the striped bass population once again.

“I think most charter boat captains have resigned themselves to the fact that we’re going to have some changes next year,” said Mark Galasso, who operates Tuna the Tide charter service out of Kent Island.

Read the full story at The Capital Gazette

Virginia Cancels Trophy Rockfish Season, Urges Other States to Follow

April 24, 2019 — It’s official- there won’t be a trophy rockfish season in Virginia this spring. Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) has voted unanimously to enact an emergency closure because of worrisome new research about the striped bass population on the Bay.

Bay Bulletin reported in early April that VMRC’s biologists called for the spring season to be canceled. And on Tuesday, the commission voted 7-0 to eliminate the spring striped bass trophy season in the Bay from May 1 through June 15, the Coast from May 1 through May 15, and the Virginia tributaries to the Potomac River from April 29 through May 15. Starting May 16 through June 15 fishermen will be able to catch and keep two striped bass from 20 to 28 inches.

The emergency action comes after recent scientific research showed the rockfish population “has been below the sustainable threshold for the past six years and overfishing has been occurring sine 2010.”

Read the full story at Chesapeake Bay Magazine 

Striped bass fishing season could be canceled in Virginia as population declines

April 12, 2019 — Virginia officials are weighing whether to cancel this year’s fishing season for large rockfish in the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay out of concern for its dwindling numbers.

The rockfish season in Virginia will begin April 20 along the Potomac River tributaries, then days later in the bay. But indications that the population of the fish, also called striped bass, is declining raised concerns that further catches could have a long-term effect on its survivability.

“Striped bass aren’t doing as well as we thought,” said Ellen Bolen, deputy commissioner for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. “We’re taking fish out faster than they can reproduce.”

Bolen’s group, which helps manage and oversee fish populations in the state, is expected to vote April 23 on an “emergency proposal” that would recommend canceling the trophy-size rockfish season, when anglers can keep rockfish that measure 36 inches or longer.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Overfishing assessment may lead Virginia to ban recreational fishing for striped bass

April 8, 2019 — The Virginia Marine Resources Commission is considering banning recreational fishing for trophy-sized striped bass this spring in the state’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay, its coastal waters and Potomac River tributaries because of indications that the species has been overfished.

Striped bass, locally called rockfish, are among the most popular species with regional saltwater anglers. Hundreds of charter captains and thousands of recreational fishermen target the fish throughout the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay region.

In Virginia’s spring trophy season, which is set to run May 1 through June 15, anglers are allowed one striped bass 36 inches or longer per day.

The commission is scheduled to take up the proposed ban at its April 23 meeting, with a proposed effective date for the emergency regulation of April 29. The rationale for the moratorium is an expected final determination in May by the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board that the large, mostly female rockfish that do most of the spawning are being overfished.

A preliminary assessment delivered to that board showed the estimated overall fishing mortality exceeded the established standard in 2017. Additionally, female spawning stock biomass (the estimated total weight of all spawning-size females) was 151 million pounds, significantly below the 202 million pound threshold.

Read the full story at The Free Lance-Star

Dolphins in Chesapeake Bay: Unusual, or No Big Deal?

August 18, 2017 — Earlier this summer, we started hearing reports of dolphins in the Chesapeake Bay. Some thought it was unusual, others said it was no big deal. So Joel McCord went searching for them for Chesapeake: A Journalism Collaborative.

Dr. Helen Bailey, who did her PhD work on bottle nose dolphins, says she heard reports of occasional sightings of the marine mammals when she came to work as an associate professor at the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science in Solomons.

But then the underwater microphones the lab was experimenting with began picking up the tell-tale squeaks and clicks of dolphins foraging in the Chesapeake and its tributaries. Now, the scientists are finding out the dolphins are pretty regular visitors to the bay.

“We were discovering that we were actually detecting dolphins quite frequently during June, July and August,” she said. “And so then put another hydrophone in the Potomac River and there we were detecting dolphins every day.”

She says they’ve been detected throughout the bay and many of its tributaries. But what drew them into the Bay?

“We think that they’re following the prey into the bay,” Bailey says. “And getting a better understanding of how that is working is really important to understanding the eco system.”

Read and listen to the full story at WVTF

Dolphins more common in Potomac than previously thought

July 19, 2016 — A waterfront house on Virginia’s Northern Neck promised to be a getaway for Janet Mann from three decades of studying dolphins, primarily in Australia’s Shark Bay.

But the day after Mann and her husband closed on the place in Ophelia, VA, four years ago, she spied an all-too-familiar sight from the shore where the Potomac River joins the Chesapeake Bay.

“I said, ‘Oh, look, dolphins!’ And then I thought, ‘Oh, no,’” Mann recalled. “I think we’ve given up on getting me away from my work.”

A professor of biology and psychology at Georgetown University in the District of Columbia, Mann has since embraced the Potomac as the next frontier for her research. In fact, she’s turned that riverfront retreat into a field station for observing a surprising number of bottlenose dolphins that venture up the Bay’s second largest tributary every summer.

Though dolphins have been spotted occasionally in the Potomac for at least the last six years, Mann said she hasn’t met anyone outside of those who live near her summer house who realize how many of the marine mammals are visiting on a regular basis. Last year, she and her research team of students and other Georgetown faculty tallied nearly 200 different animals in just a two-week span.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

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

 

‘Ghost fleet’ offers treasure trove of wildlife, history in the Potomac

November 2, 2015 — NANJEMOY, Md. — Hidden beneath the waters of the Potomac River are dozens of sunken ships known as a “ghost fleet” that sailed from the Revolutionary War to after World War I, and now, thanks to the Chesapeake Conservancy, the public can experience these underwater ships and the unique ecosystem that has grown around them from their desktops.

The conservancy has teamed up with Terrain360, a Richmond, Virginia, company, to take panoramic shots of Mallows Bay and the more than 100 shipwrecks located there, piecing them together to create a virtual tour of the bay that you can find here.

The bay, tucked along the shores of the Potomac River in Charles County, Maryland, is home to the largest collection of historic shipwrecks in the Western Hemisphere. But the sunken ships have also created a marine habitat full of fish, birds and other wildlife, which the conservancy hopes to protect.

Visitors to the bay will spot an engine rising from the mist. Trees growing from the hull of a sunken ship seem to form an island that’s shaped like a ship. And the rusty hull of another ship can be seen rising above the waterline further out from the shore. Nearby is a menhaden fishing boat dating to the 1940s that was used during World War II.

Read the full story at WTOP

 

At “Our Oceans” Conference in Chile, Obama announces the first new marine sanctuaries in 15 years

“Several advocacy groups have been pressing the administration to declare two new national marine monuments off New England’s coast: Cashes Ledge and the New England Canyons and Seamounts, which are home to a major kelp forest and network of deepwater corals, respectively. But some local fishing operators raised objections to the designations of the two areas in the run up to the global conference, and the president did not use his executive authority to put them off limits.”

The following is an excerpt from a Washington Post story, written by Chelsea Harvey with contributions from Juliet Eilperin: 

WASHINGTON (The Washington Post) October 5, 2015 — In a video message to conference attendees, President Obama announced plans for two new marine sanctuaries, one off the coast of Maryland, and the other in Lake Michigan. They’ll be the first new national marine sanctuaries designated by the federal government in the past 15 years.

One of these sanctuaries will be an 875-square mile section of Lake Michigan off the shore of Wisconsin, which is recognized for its collection of nearly 40 known shipwrecks, some of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The other sanctuary is a 14-square mile area of the Potomac River, which includes Maryland’s Mallows Bay – an area known for its ecological significance, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and home to bald eagles, herons, beavers, river otters and numerous species of fish.

…

Several advocacy groups have been pressing the administration to declare two new national marine monuments off New England’s coast: Cashes Ledge and the New England Canyons and Seamounts, which are home to a major kelp forest and network of deepwater corals, respectively. But some local fishing operators raised objections to the designations of the two areas in the run up to the global conference, and the president did not use his executive authority to put them off limits.

Marine national monuments differ from marine sanctuaries in that they can be established by presidential proclamation, whereas sanctuaries are designated by NOAA and require extensive public input – however, they can offer similar protections and human use restrictions over marine ecosystems.

The United States is also announcing several other plans aimed at protecting marine resources. In Chile for the conference, Secretary of State John F. Kerry announced the launch of Sea Scout, a global initiative targeting illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing by uniting world leaders, expanding technology and information-sharing and identifying illegal fishing hot spots. NOAA also has plans to expand the development of a technology known as the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, which detects boats and may help alert nations to illegal fishing activities. The technology will be implemented in several nations in 2016, including Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Sea Scout initiative “provides a real opportunity to improve coordination and information sharing around the world as a way to combat illegal fishing,” said Beth Lowell, senior campaign director for Oceana, in a statement to The Post. According to Lowell, the biggest challenges to combating illegal fishing are an untraceable global seafood supply chain and a lack of enforcement. And on these fronts, there’s still more to be done.

“The first step to effectively stop IUU fishing and seafood fraud is to require catch documentation for all seafood sold in the U.S.,” Lowell said. “While Oceana applauds the president’s task force for taking great steps in the right direction, full-chain traceability is ultimately needed for all U.S. seafood to ensure that it’s safe, legally caught and honestly labeled.”

Read the full story from the Washington Post

Read Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks here