I was recently talking on our TidalFish.com message boards about the oyster situation we have in the Chesapeake Bay. Basically we find ourselves at about 1-3% of the historic levels of oysters that the Chesapeake Bay used to have. To be fair, overfishing was not the absolute main cause of this depletion as the oysters of the Chesapeake have been plagued by poor water quality and two forms of disease caused by parasites. Haplosporidium nelsoni, which causes MSX disease, and Perkinsus marinus, which causes Dermo disease (the parasite was originally identified as the genus Dermocystidium and the shortened version has hung on). However, I do not think anyone could argue with any substantial ground to stand on that overfishing did not help the situation. As soon as we found out about these diseases drastic reduction regulations should have been put in place. Maybe if they were we might not find ourselves where we are today, on the brink of losing the Chesapeake Oyster forever. One might chalk the whole fiasco up to mis-management.

This brings me to a story which is already history. I’ve always tried to learn from the mistakes of others, after all we only have so much time on this earth as we know it, why not maximize that time and leverage other people’s investment in time. I think the Chesapeake Sturgeon story is a lesson worth reminding ourselves when we start talking about managing fish population and talking about what works and what does not. Once a fish population is in trouble I think the answer is dramatic reductions in harvests. Read the story below and make the call yourself.

I read an interesting story recently in the Easton Star Democrat by Anne Stinson. It was taking about bird populations, but mentioned a story which I often reference in regards to how Maryland seems to manage, or better stated, mismanage fish populations. The story is about the Sturgeon that used to be prevalent in the Chesapeake Bay. The Sturgeon is an amazing prehistoric fish (estimated to exist back 120 million years) which used to be common from Canadian waters to the Mississippi River Delta. History books recount how colonists saw huge schools of Sturgeon leaping in the waters of the James and Susquehanna Rivers. There were so many Sturgeon in the Chesapeake and its tributaries that colonists wrote they were a “hazard to navigation”. Imagine that, so many fish that they were a hazard.

From the 16th to the 19th century the Chesapeake Bay was the second largest Sturgeon fishery in the United States, both for the roe (eaten as caviar) and for the sweet tasting meat. These fish were commercially over fished bringing the Sturgeon population in the Chesapeake to basically nothing. We allowed the commercial interests to totally wipe out the Sturgeon fishery. Arguably, water quality and dams did not help the situation, but we knew about the diminishing water quality as well as the effect dams were having and we still let it happen. In fact, we knew about the Sturgeon problems as far back as 1920 when fishermen were not allowed to catch Sturgeon under 20 pounds. In 1970 that size was bumped up to 25lbs. In 1994 a legal Sturgeon had to be a minimum length of 7 feet (how many Sturgeon were even in the bay by this point has to be a joke to even talk about). Then, finally (I am rolling my eyes while writing this mind you) in 1996 a total moratorium was put into effect.

In 1996 after Maryland officials finally closed the fishery, 3,000 juveniles from the Hudson River were transplanted into the Nanicoke River in hopes that it would help Sturgeon come back in the bay. Was this too little too late? Well, think about this, male Sturgeon mature in 10 to 20 years when they are five feet long and weigh about 90lbs. Females do not mature for 15 to 30 years when they are about six feet long and weigh about 160lbs. And now the icing on the cake, these fish only spawn once (that is 1 time) each two to six year period.

The Sturgeon story reminds me of some other species in the bay that I think we should be looking at real hard today in regards to curtailing commercial harvests such as oysters, crabs, maybe Striped Bass, oh and that little yellow guy that has to dodge nets during their spawning season, the yellow perch. We know there are problems with these species. Do we want to manage these populations when they are gone and it’s too late? Or should we be doing something now?

So, next time there some sort of activity around reducing commercial or even recreational harvests, think about the story of the Sturgeon and ask yourself if someone else will be writing a story about the Maryland Blue Crab, the Chesapeake Oyster, Menhaden, or the Yellow Perch fifty years from now as I am about the Sturgeon. I would encourage you to get involved, even if that means sending your congress person a letter or even the Department of Natural Resources. Just think about if Maryland had done something real to protect the Sturgeon and what a fishery we might have in the bay today, man would that have been cool.”

One thing thing we have manged for sure, and that is to manage tons of species right into extinction. I think its’ time for a change of “management”