Tag Archives: Virginia
Proposal for tighter oversight of recreational striped bass catch dies
Commercial fishermen asked state regulators Tuesday night to make recreational fishermen tag their striped bass the way commercial operators do, to make sure they’re not taking too many fish. But the idea died when Doug Jenkins, president of the Twin Rivers Watermen’s group, in Warsaw, outlined his proposal to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission’s finfish management advisory committee. “We’re losing our rockfish (striped bass) quota and losing our crab industry,” Jenkins told the committee. >click to read< 18:32
BLACK SEA BASS – THE NEW “WAR BETWEEN THE STATES”
On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House in Virginia, signifying the end of the U.S. Civil War. One hundred and fifty-three years to the day, north and south are set to do battle yet again, this time over sea bass. From April 30 through May 3, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASFMC) will hold its 2018 spring meeting in Arlington, VA, a city that was once the dividing line between Confederates to the South and the Union Army to the north during the bloodiest war in U.S. history. >click to read<12:41
Virginia: Heavily lobbied menhaden bill finally emerges
After weeks of intensive, behind-closed-doors lobbying, the Chesapeake Bay’s oily, inedible menhaden fish finally landed on the General Assembly’s plate. After more than 90 minutes of debate, the House Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee decided by an 11-10 vote that the best answer was: sort of. Earlier in the session, it let die a measure that would enact the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s purse seine quota cut, to 51,000 metric tons, into state law. On Wednesday, it approved a measure, introduced by special permission a month after the usual deadline, that would strike the current quota of 87,216 tons from state law and empower the head of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission to set a new purse seine quota of not less than 51,000 tons once the state had made its case to the commission that the quota cut was too steep. >click to read< 15:14
Woody Boating At 15 Degrees! What Could Go Wrong? And It Did!
While the globe was downloading the New App, and watching it crash over China and having Android issues, we decided to see if we could get the Boatres’s New Trawler started and get her to our dock, her new home. Hey, a boat ride helps everything… Right? Now, this was not for the faint of heart. It was cold as crap.. in a Virginia way. And it was around 3PM once we built up the courage to try. Photos, click here to read the story 21:53
Blue Crabs Crest Tipping Point – Maryland and Virginia may limit harvest for the remainder of the season
After almost three decades of effort, Maryland’s treasured Chesapeake Bay crustacean, the blue crab, has achieved a major scientific benchmark. The number of spawning females has at last reached the minimum target level for optimum species viability: 215 million sooks. The 2017 Winter Dredge Survey put the female population at well over the minimum, 254 million, an impressive 31 percent increase from the prior year. This is an important moment, as just four years ago (and five years prior to that), the female crab population had been driven to dangerous, even population-collapse, levels.,, To protect overall numbers, the Maryland, Virginia and Potomac River Fisheries Commission has proposed shortening the crabbing season and imposing stricter bushel limits on female crabs. No changes to male crab limits were proposed. click here to read the story 16:25
Fishery managers weighing cuts in Bay crab harvest
Chesapeake Bay crabbers will likely face some harvest restriction this season to protect future generations of the iconic crustacean, a move managers say is necessary because of the low population of juveniles. Fishery managers for Maryland, Virginia and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission all say they are considering shortening the season and imposing stricter limits on the harvest of female crabs. They are not proposing changes in male crab catches. News of harvest cuts surprised some crabbers at Maryland’s Blue Crab Industry Advisory Committee last week. The latest winter dredge survey results released in April showed the highest number of female crabs in the 28-year history of the annual count. Female crabs clocked in at 254 million, a 31 percent increase over last year. But the Baywide survey, which counts the crabs in more than 1,000 locations as they burrow in the mud, estimated there were 125 million juvenile crabs in the Chesapeake, a 54 percent decrease from the 271 million found in 2016. That is the lowest tally since 2013 — a year when crabbers also had their catch curtailed — and one of the five lowest estimates since 1990, managers said. Click here to continue reading the article 21:38
Oyster poaching continues on bay despite enforcement efforts
Waterman Edward “Bruce” Lowery lost his Maryland license to harvest oysters five years ago, after racking up more than three dozen violations. He was convicted of fishing at the wrong times, in the wrong places and using the wrong equipment. But that hasn’t stopped him from oystering in the. Lowery, 49, says he bought a piece of land in Virginia — a “$3,000 piece of nothing” where he has never lived — to secure a commercial license from that state. Virginia regulators didn’t ask about his record in Maryland. Read the rest here 10:30
Maryland, Virginia Members Disagree on Atlantic Oil Drilling
The Obama administration’s recent proposal to lease oil and gas drilling in a swath of the Atlantic Ocean generated the expected mix of cheers and jeers on Capitol Hill, but local reaction was mostly divided along state borders rather than party affiliations. Marylanders are reluctant, while Virginians appear to want to charge ahead, especially if it might mean more cash in their state coffers Read the rest here 16:12
Too many risks to drill off Virginia
IT TAKES a lot of assumptions to conclude that offshore drilling will benefit Virginia:– That the Navy will reverse years of analysis and decide that drilling poses no danger to its training mission offshore or its installations onshore.– That oil companies won’t imperil Hampton Roads’ tourism and commercial fishing with a spill, as has happened everywhere else.– n That despite years of resistance, every state in America will now agree to simply hand over royalties to Virginia. — Read the rest here 15:46
Virginia winter blue crab dredge fishery closed for another year
The Chesapeake Bay winter crab dredge fishery will be closed for yet another year after Virginia Marine Resources Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to give the bay’s depleted stock of iconic blue crabs time to rebuild. [email protected] 10:02
Sharp Increase in Dolphin Deaths – Five beached dolphins were found in Virginia on Thursday
Officials are trying to determine the cause of a sharp increase in dolphin deaths in Virginia and other East Coast states. continued@nbcwashington
Virginia is coping with its first run-in with a phrase no one in public health or the seafood business ever wants to hear: oyster disease outbreak.
Three people became sick recently after eating raw oysters collected from the same private grounds off Fisherman Island on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. They ate the oysters at restaurants in Massachusetts and Maryland, victims of a pathogen that grows naturally in warm waters known as Vibrio parahaemolyticus. continued@pilotonline
