ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR) — The annual Atlantic striped bass juvenile stock assessments done each year by the states of Virginia and Maryland in the Chesapeake Bay show another year of weak spawning classes. It is a downward trend that has extended more than half a decade.
“It’s about six years in a row of very low reproduction in Maryland and the Virginia number is about half the average,” said Chesapeake Bay Foundation Virginia Executive Director Chris Moore.
The trend is especially concerning because Atlantic striped bass drive a commercial and sport fisheries worth more than seven billion dollars yearly from Maine to North Carolina. Roughly 70% to 90% of Atlantic striped bass are spawned and hatched in the Chesapeake Bay.
Moore says weather partially plays into the situation. Warmer winters may be affecting the timing of phytoplankton hatches. Newly hatched striped bass feed on the phytoplankton. If it hatches too early, it is gone by the time the juvenile stripers are hatched.
While striped bass stocks are not good, there is a decent number of larger breeding-sized fish. Moore says it is vital to protect them with harvest and size limits.
“Obviously we want to do as much as we can to make sure we have a healthy population of large breeding fish out in the ecosystem so that when the conditions do line up for successful spawning we do have that,” said Moore.
