A Bay in Peril

Commercial overfishing has decimated many of the Chesapeake's marine species. Soft-shell clams are gone, oysters are down to about one percent of historical populations, and blue crabs are rapidly disappearing. Industrial pollution compounds the problem.

Considering the following: More than 150 sewage treatment plants empty directly into the Bay. The Susquehanna River has a staggering number of non-compliant sewage plants along its 600-plus-mile course through New York and Pennsylvania, eventually reaching the Bay.

The poultry industry, on the Delmarva Peninsula, is America's (and possibly the world's) largest chicken farm, and thus, adds enormous pollution from chicken waste products into Chesapeake waters. Also, the poultry industry depends on menhaden to produce food pellets for chickens. And menhaden are the sole remaining filter feeder of note in the Chesapeake.

In the early 1900s it is estimated that the total volume of the Chesapeake's water was completely filtered in eight hours by filter feeders-principally oysters and menhaden. Today, the same level of filtration takes more than one year.

Since the oysters are all but gone, the only filter feeders left (and likely the only hope for the Bay) are menhaden, but relatively few of each year's hatch make it past Reedville, Virginia. Why? Because one company, operating a number of large menhaden trawlers, working in concert with spotter planes, takes almost 70 percent of the entire Atlantic coast's menhaden stocks. This does two things. First, menhaden are strictly filter feeders. They swim around in dense schools consuming vast amounts of plankton along with all sorts of detritus. They are so important that marine biologist Sara Gottlieb, in an article titled "The Most Important Fish in the Sea," published in the September 2001 issue of Discover Magazine, likened them, in function, to a human's liver. You can't live without a liver, which pretty much spells out what will happen to the Chesapeake should the menhaden slaughter continue.

Menhaden are also the primary food fish for striped bass. With the reduction of available menhaden, stripers have turned to other food sources, notably silversides and bay anchovies which lack the oil and protein-rich flesh of the menhaden. As a result, we are now seeing more skinny stripers that are slowly starving.

To stem the menhaden slaughter, The National Coalition for Marine Conservation is circulating a petition to be presented in December 2003 to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) to ban industrial-scale menhaden fishing in the Chesapeake Bay. You can add your name to the petition and get more information by visiting the following website: www.savethefish.org Maryland and New Jersey already have a ban on menhaden netting in place. Maybe we can convince Virginia to join in.

Gamefish Status for Stripers

Many Atlantic coast anglers feel that nothing short of gamefish status will ensure a viable recreational striper fishery. Stripers Forever, a non-profit organization, seeks to eliminate commercial fishing for stripers through a federal bill (H.R. 1286) introduced by congressman Frank Pallone of New Jersey.

The bill seeks to bring gamefish status to stripers in the extended economic zone, waters more than 3 miles off the coast, and affect time and area closures for commercial fishing methods such as gill netting during the striper migration.

To read the language of this bill and for more information about Stripers Forever, visit www.stripersforever.com

SWA