"A new study suggests osprey chicks are starving in parts of the Chesapeake Bay because of a lack of menhaden, a primary source of food but also a major industry."

"When Casey Shaw and Bryan Watts motored their Boston Whaler into Craney Island Creek this summer looking for osprey nests, they hoped to find a pair of birds on every channel marker. Instead they found none.

“It was heartbreaking,” said Shaw, who works for the conservation group Elizabeth River Project in Hampton Roads.

The mystery of vanishing ospreys — a bird of prey that feeds on fish and is not considered endangered — has puzzled homeowners, boaters and conservationists around the Chesapeake Bay the past few years. A new study claims to explain the decline, but the findings have aggravated a much bigger controversy."

Gregory S. Schneider reports for the Washington Post September 22, 2024. [2]