A few weeks back, I wrote about some Marylanders plowing through the icy Bering Sea off Alaska to study how it's changing.  Now there's another local who's exploring faraway waters, though he's picked a warmer spot - the Red Sea.

Glenn Page, former conservation director for the National Aquarium here in Baltimore, is part of an international crew on a research cruise investigating coral reefs off the coast of Saudi Arabia.  Since leaving the aquarium, he's founded his own environmental consulting firm.

For the past couple weeks, Glenn has been shooting underwater photos and videos of the Farasan Banks to take stock of the health of the reefs there.  You can read more about the expedition and see photos and video of the work here.  The bright blue coral at right is stylophora.

In addition, Glenn's been keeping a blog about the expedition.  His most recent post, which he sent me today, serves as an Earth Day greeting from the other side of the planet:

Imagine giving up 1/2 of your income, in addition to taxes and payments for house, college etc., just so you can ensure your children have a chance for a future.   That's exactly what the desperately poor Vezo, an indigenous group of nomadic fishing communities of southwest Madagascar, did when they established the first real marine protected area in the Indian Ocean.   They risked everything just for the slim chance to save their ecosystem and indeed, themselves.  Every day is earth day for the Vezo.  As a local leader noted recently, "In order to be Vezo, a person must act in the present, for it is only in the present that one performs one's identity.

Read the rest here. 

Continue reading "Earth Day from afar" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 4:56 PM in Sustainability, fisheries, water quality | Permalink | Comments (0)
                       

A surprising development in Virginia may presage the end - at least for now - of the debate over whether Asian oysters have any place in the Chesapeake Bay.

On Tuesday, the Virginia Seafood Council abruptly withdrew its request to raise 1.1 million Asian oysters in 11 locations around the bay.  The oysters would have been genetically modified and bred to be sterile, though critics have said there is still at least a slight chance that some would be able to reproduce.

In a statement read at a hearing before the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, Frances W. Porter, the seafood council's executive director, said the group remained "firm in its confidence in the Asian oysters, but we have exhausted our negotiating capabilities with federal and state authorities." 

According to this story by Scott Harper in the Virginian-Pilot, Porter said the council dropped its push for the Asian oyster field trials after "conversations with unnamed state officials over the weekend."

Porter also said the group believed that the Asian oyster would never realize its potential as an aquaculture product, and that Virginia's oyster industry would never be restored to its historic prominence. 

(The statement was sent me by Chuck Epes, spokesman for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which was outspoken in opposition to the Asian oysters.)

The withdrawal comes on the eve of a conference call scheduled Wednesday between Maryland and Virginia natural resources officials and the Army Corps commander to try to reach agreement on whether even sterilized Asian oysters should have a role in restoring the bay's oysters.    The trio consulted last Friday, without resolution.

Watermen and seafood businesses in both states contend that years of costly efforts to restore the bay's native oysters after decades of devastation by habitat loss and disease have not succeeded.  They have pressed for permission to try Asian oysters, since they have proven to resist the diseases killing off native bivalves.

A four-year scientific study of how to restore the bay's oysters, however, said there were uncertainties about whether the non-native bivalve could be grown in a controlled way that would prevent it from spreading.

Last week, Col. Dionysios Anninos, the Norfolk Corps District commander, informed the two states that he wanted more study of the sterile Asian oysters to settle lingering questions about the risks they would accidentally reproduce and spread, bringing the possibilities of disease or other ecological harm.  The seafood council offered to alter its request to raise Asian oysters to incorporate more research into its "field trials", but federal environmental agencies had lined up against it, and at least one threatened to appeal it to higher levels within the federal bureaucracy.

Maryland officials have opposed using Asian oysters, while Virginia officials said on Friday that they were still reviewing their position.  It wasn't clear whether Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine or his natural resources secretary had come down against the oyster import.  The Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the state-funded fisheries research lab which had pioneered the process of producing the sterile "triploid" Asian oysters, had advised against allowing their commercial cultivation in the bay.  

Continue reading "Asian oysters off the Bay menu?" »

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

Maryland has announced it will curb the catch of female horseshoe crabs in state waters this year - short of the moratorium that some wanted but one that biologists hope may provide an indirect boost for the troubled red knot.

The red knot is a globe-trotting shorebird that stops off on the shores of Delaware Bay in May and June as it flies from its winter home in South America to the Arctic, where it breeds.  While in the region, the birds gorge themselves on the eggs that are scattered about the beach by horseshoe crabs as the prehistoric-looking creatures trundle up onto the beaches to reproduce. 

The number of red knots showing up in Delaware Bay every spring has plummeted since the 1980s, and as reported here before, federal biologists have suggested that a decline in horseshoe crabs - and their eggs - may be a major cause.  Conservation groups have appealed for federal endangered-species protection for the birds, so far to no avail.

The slow-moving, helmet-shaped crabs are not restaurant fare, but they are caught by fishermen along the mid-Atlantic coast to use as bait for catching conchs and eels.   (Horseshoes also are commercially valuable to the medical industry because a protein in their blood can be used to test for the presence of endotoxins, which can sicken or kill humans.  But the crabs are only "bled," not killed, to harvest this resource, and then they are returned to the sea.)

Maryland's role in  the red knot's fate is key, even though the birds prefer Delaware for their spring stopover.  Crabs caught by Maryland fishermen off Ocean City are part of the same stock that goes into Delaware Bay to spawn, biologists say. 

The state took steps a decade ago to reduce its harvest, and now operates under a quota set by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.  But while there is some evidence horseshoe crabs are recovering, the red knots are not - thus, the pressure to do more to boost the horseshoes faster, and possibly help the birds.

Some conservation groups wanted Maryland to impose a total moratorium on the horseshoe catch.  The 170,000 crabs that can be caught off Ocean City and in the Chesapeake Bay is the second largest catch quota of all the mid-Atlantic states.  

Instead of shutting down the fishery, though, Maryland officials opted to require fishermen to take two males for every female they catch.  State officials saw that as a "prudent action" that should boost the number of females left in the sea while not putting fishermen out of work.  There are only 10 fishermen in Maryland permitted to catch horseshoe crabs, says Tom O'Connell, fisheries director for the Department of Natural Resources, but their catch provides bait for about 20 conch fishermen and about 60 eel fishermen.  Restricting the catch of females will cost the fishermen time and money, advocates say, since the males tend to be smaller and worth less.

Groups like the American Bird Conservancy praised the state's action as progress, and said they expected it should lead to more eggs on the beach for the red knots' migratory refueling.  But Darin Schroeder, the group's vice president, said that if the birds don't show greater recovery in their population soon, conservationists may call for still more reductions in the horseshoe harvest. Nor have they given up on federal protections, though they acknowledge the shorebird lacks the size or charisma of more popular endangered species.

"If the .. red knot were American bald eagles, you would see greater management actions being taken," contends Schroeder.  

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:30 AM in Wildlife, fisheries | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

Virginia's seafood industry is seeking permission to grow 1.1 million Asian oysters over the next year, even as Maryland, Virginia and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrestle over whether the imported bivalves should have a role in restoring the Chesapeake Bay's depleted oyster population.

The Virginia Seafood Council asked the state to let 11 growers plant batches of 100,000 sterile Asian oysters in cages and bags around the bay and on the ocean side of the Eastern Shore, according to The Virginian-Pilot.  It quoted the council's executive director, Frances Porter, saying the Newport News-based industry group has been experimenting with the non-native oyster for seven years now without any problems.

Environmental groups and federal environmental agencies have weighed in against the request, however.  They argue that even such limited trials risk an accidental release of reproducing Asian oysters into the bay, where they could spread and harm efforts to bring back native oysters.

In a letter to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, the bay office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service argues that the Asian oysters are not truly sterile, and that they are still capable of reproduction.  The agency says reproduction may already have happened from earlier experiments, but has so far been undetected. 

And, says the federal wildlife agency, there have been at least 11 instances in the last eight years in which Asian oysters being grown by Virginians "escaped" -- most recently last December.  The bivalves in those mishaps were spilled into the water when bags or cages that contained them broke open -- in a couple cases entire containers turned up missing.

The Virginia commission is to decide the issue in April -- about the same time the two bay states and the Army are to finalize an Environmental Impact Statement on the future course of oyster restoration in the bay.   

Seafood businesses and watermen in both states favor using the Asian oysters, because they grow faster and are resistant to the diseases that have decimated native oysters.  Environmentalists and many scientists contend a non-native is too risky, and urge focusing on native oyster restoration.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                       

As if Maryland's watermen need more tsuris, now comes news that the feds have busted a big rockfish poaching ring that could curtail or even end their ability to make a living harvesting the state fish. 

My colleague Candus Thomson, The Baltimore Sun's outdoors writer, broke the story over the weekend and followed up today.  Five watermen, two fish dealers and an upscale Georgetown fish market have been charged, she reported.  Two other watermen were indicted last fall, and other charges are expected.

Though the individuals charged face possible fines, jail time and loss of their livelihoods, the illegal activity also could hurt all commercial fishermen in the state, and coastwide. 

Rockfish, known elsewhere as striped bass, migrate along the East Coast, and the population is protected by fishing quotas set for each state by a federal regulatory body, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commisison.  That group, meeting this week in Alexandria, VA, could well decide to slash Maryland's catch quota.  If that happens, state officials are likely to see that the pain is felt by watermen, not by recreational anglers, who share the state's catch quota.

And it could get worse.  As today's story points out, five Atlantic states already have outlawed any commercial fishing for striped bass, with Massachustetts lawmakers now considering making it the sixth.  Pressing for such bans are recreational fishermen, many of whom are concerned about protecting the species, but also who compete in a sense with watermen for the right to catch them.  While watermen often enjoy popular support, much as farmers do, evidence of watermen behaving badly is likely to add pressure on politicians to cut them off altogether. 

The rockfish sting comes on the heels of news that Maryland watermen reported catching more blue crabs last year, despite efforts by the state to reduce the harvest of the bay's most lucrative aquatic critter.  I reported that last week, and blogged about it.

State officials are suggesting watermen may have inflated the crab catch figures because the state imposed female crab catch limits last fall based on prior years' harvests.  (Another possible explanation is that they underreported the catch in prior years when those figures didn't matter as much - except perhaps to the Internal Revenue Service.) 

Either way, watermen risk having even tighter catch limits imposed on them, if only because the state may have enough doubts about the accuracy of harvest reports to seek an extra margin of safety.  As with the rockfish sting, if the crab catch is found to be inflated, any consequences would seem to be at least partly self-inflicted.

(Photo by Kim Hairston of The Baltimore Sun)

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 2:46 PM in fisheries | Permalink | Comments (5)
                       

Just in time for Halloween, a troubling new study suggests that the Chesapeake Bay's rockfish may, in fact, be dying from the bacterial disease that now infects more than half of them.

Researchers from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Coastal Carolina University and the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that mycobacteriosis, the chronic disease that has been inflicting awful-looking lesions on our state fish since 1997, has been claiming a previously unknown share of them.

It's particularly troubling news since the bay is the main breeding and nursery ground for all the striped bass that range along the Atlantic coast.  Stripers, better known in these parts as rockfish, are a major commercial fishery in the bay, and a prime catch among recreational anglers coastwide.

Because rockfish don't travel in schools, their deaths aren't as easily noticed as when, say, a mess of menhaden get trapped in an oxygen-deprived cove and go belly-up.  But scientists analyzing fish sampling data have noticed an uptick in mortality among rockfish in Maryland waters since 1999 that couldn't be attributed to them being caught. 

It wasn't clear at first whether the deaths were from disease or natural causes, until researchers factored in the results of a three-year study of the bacterial disease in rockfish.  They then found that fish with the lesions were 30 percent less likely to survive another year, that older females were more likely to succumb than males, and that the die-off increases in summer, when the fish may be more stressed because warmer temperatures have reduce oxygen levels in the water.

For more on the study, look here.  The photo from VIMS below is of a 20-inch rockfish mottled with lesions.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 5:30 AM in fisheries | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

A study led by scientists from Texas and Maryland has found that the bluefin tuna anglers are catching off the East Coast include a lot of trans-Atlantic travelers - tuna spawned in the Mediterranean Sea. 

It's a finding that should prompt fishery managers to rethink how they're going about rebuilding the badly diminished population of this sought-after fish, says David Secor, researcher at the University of Maryland's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons.  You can read a press release summarizing the study here.

Until now, many experts had believed that the tuna in the western Atlantic and in the Medterranean were two separate stocks.  But after studying the chemical makeup of the ears of fish caught off the US and Canadian coast and in the Mediterranean, the researchers determined that young tuna from Europe evidently were swimming across the ocean to mingle with their western relatives before returning to the Med to spawn.

The study appears in the current issue of the journal Science (abstract only, subscription required). The findings ought to give pause to fishermen who love the thrill of catching bluefins off Ocean City.  It seems we've had an inflated notion of how healthy the stock is along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, since it's been spiced up with European immigrants. 

"Those fish we're catching depend on the health of the Mediterranean population," Secor said.  Recently that population has been declining because of overfishing, he pointed out, adding, "That doesn't create a very good outlook."

For more on bluefin tuna and how their catch is regulated now, go here.

Posted by Tim Wheeler at 6:43 PM in fisheries | Permalink | Comments (1)
                       

President George W. Bush is coming to St. Michaels this weekend. And it's not to have dinner with the Cheneys and the Rumsfelds. No, he's expected to make a major announcement about striped bass, with Rep. Gilchrest at his side.

What's he gonna say? A North Carolina paper is reporting that he will either declare the species a gamefish or direct fisheries managers to do so.

That, according to news reports, would make the species off-limits to commercial fishermen. And it would, by my reckoning, have a major impact on bay fishermen, many of whom have turned to striped bass fishing as other bay resources (crabs, oysters) have become unreliable.

The Sun will cover the event, and I will try to figure out how to blog from home so I can put something up here and let everyone know. (I am a bit of a technophobe -- a wonderful characteristic for a blogger.)

I just had smoked rockfish for lunch today in Annapolis, and was reminded that the recovery of the species is one of the Chesapeake Bay's few success stories, along with fish-passage goals. So this development kinda surprises me, and I'm not just saying that because smoked rockfish is such a darned good thing. I'm saying it because I figured this was an area where we were doing fairly well. If a moratorium were to come down the pike, so to speak, I'd expect it for one of the species that is nowhere near recovery (and I'm not naming names here).

Speaking of Gilchrest, he has had fish on the mind lately. He just introduced a bill that would put a moratorium on the harvest of menhaden form both state and federal waters. If passed, that could end what is left of the Omega protein fishery in Reedville.

(This post was written by Rona Kobell.) 

Posted by Mary Hartney at 5:05 PM in fisheries | Permalink | Comments (2)