Disturbing reports abound on the continuing decline in the health of the Chesapeake Bay and its most famous produce, oysters and blue crabs. Though once abundant in the nation’s largest estuary, both species have been in numerical free-fall for years. The failing oyster harvest is especially acute because healthy oyster reefs are also essential for the food chain upon which crabs rely. So, it is especially important to restore the oyster population that has fallen to about 1 percent of its historic size. Unfortunately, despite $58 million in government spending to save the Bay’s oysters since 1994, there are now fewer oysters in the Bay than there were 14 years ago.

Terrible problems sometimes cry out for Draconian solutions. Washington region officials should ponder the successful effort in the Gulf of Mexico to replenish the delicacy called redfish. Many Cajun food lovers know the story: Redfish were long a relatively ignored species until Chef Paul Prudhomme created his famous “blackened redfish” dish, which became so popular and so imitated that commercial fishermen began overharvesting the species. Within about a decade, natural stocks of the Gulf species had fallen to dangerously low levels. In 1988, the federal government banned all redfish catches in federal waters, and every Gulf state but Mississippi banned commercial (but not recreational) redfish catches in state waters as well. Result: A stunningly successful turnaround for the species, with the recreational catch tripling from 3.5 million fish in 1986 to 9.8 million in 2006.