CHESAPEAKE BAY, Va. (WAVY) — Osprey breeding along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay is in trouble. That’s the finding of recent research by the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation says it’s being caused by overfishing of menhaden, a food fish in the ospreys’ diet. However Reedville-based Ocean Harvesters, the fishing partner of Omega Protein, disagrees.
The CCB survey monitored more than 1,000 osprey nests over a six-month period this year, checking zones up and down the Bay and its estuaries. Researchers categorized the results by the salinity of the water in a particular section, and found that breeding among ospreys was more successful in waters with lower salinity, more distant from the ocean.
The viability of osprey eggs, and chicks reaching adulthood, was threatened in the southern reaches of the Bay near the mouths of the James and York rivers and closer to Norfolk.
Ocean Harvesters cites other research by the U.S. Geological Survey finding that catfish, striped bass and sea trout were more significant than menhaden in the ospreys’ diet, depending on the location on the Bay. The company also says osprey eggs would typically have already been laid before it began fishing operations in late May.
“Most or all of the eggs would have been laid by then,” said CEO Montgomery Deihl in a Wednesday interview with 10 On Your Side. “So you can’t say that our fishing has resulted in the challenges that the osprey had.”
Will Poston of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation stated in a recent press release: “An overwhelming majority of Virginians want action to leave more menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay. … Virginia should pause industrial menhaden fishing in the Chesapeake Bay until science can show whether this fishery is sustainable.”
Deihl says the menhaden stock is not overfished, and even a pause in operations would be devastating to the region’s economy.
