"First-ever Bay stock assessment sees overfishing in more than half of Chesapeake"
"Watermen overharvested oysters last winter in a little more than half of Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, according to the state’s first-ever stock assessment of the commercially and ecologically valuable shellfish. If those harvest rates continue, the assessment warned, the bivalve population in those areas could eventually be wiped out.
The 359-page assessment report, released Tuesday, estimated that Maryland’s overall population of adult oysters this year is half what it was 18 years ago.
The assessment, prepared by the Department of Natural Resources in consultation with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, sets the stage for a potentially fractious debate in coming months over the state’s management of the keystone Bay species, which is also a pillar of Maryland’s seafood industry."
Timothy B. Wheeler reports for the Bay Journal November 21, 2018.
SEE ALSO:
"New study: Chesapeake oyster decline not due to overfishing" (Bay Journal)
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