Striped bass, the Chesapeake Bay staple also known as rockfish, face major threats and great successes in the Chesapeake Bay this year.
Its reproductive success in the Bay is down, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resource?s juvenile index, which was released last week.
The index of baby rockfish sunk to 4.3 this year, compared with last year?s 17.8, and the 53-year average of 12, said Eric Durell, fisheries biologist for the department.
But anglers need not be alarmed. Rockfish reproductive rates constantly fluctuate because they are mostly based on spring weather, Durell said.
He attributes this year?s low count to a dry spring.
Fishermen caught a record harvest of about 67,234 fish in the Bay during the four-week spring season, said Sharov Alexi, director of the stock assessment and analysis program at the department.
But the fish they catch are skinnier, reflecting a lack of food supply, said Bill Goldsborough, senior scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
He said he thinks the fish are undernourished because of an over-harvesting of one of their major food sources ? a small fish called menhaden.
Virginia?s menhaden harvests were restricted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission last week for the first time in history, said Braddock Spear, Senior Fisheries Management Plan Coordinator for Policy at the commission.
The five-year limitation was created in part to provide a greater food supply for the striped bass, Spear said.
Menhaden have not been harvested in Maryland for decades, hesaid.
Undernourishment may also be to blame for a disease called mycobacteriosis, which has plagued striped bass for the past 10 years, Goldsborough said.
The disease can cause lesions and swollen eyes and was found in 40 percent of striped bass in 1999, the most recent survey on the department?s Web site.
