Every spring, we rejoice in the arrival of ospreys from their winter homes in South America, some migrating from as far as 4,400 miles from Bolivia. Mid-August signals the beginning of their migration south.
September completes their departures and brings shorter days with less time for dining on our deck on Oyster Creek. Soon, the skies will be devoid of these elegant flying machines with 6-foot wing spans whose exploits entertain us daily. They must migrate to assure a winter supply of fish which compose 99% of their diet.
The osprey is a symbol of how we can reverse human-induced wildlife declines, giving us a glimpse of hope. Ospreys were nearly wiped out by the widespread use of DDT, causing egg thinning and the death of young birds. When DDT was banned in 1972, just 1,450 breeding pairs were left in bay country.
Eliminating DDT, coupled with federal protection from shooting and nest destruction, and the erection of nesting platforms, resulted in the population reaching more than 10,000 pairs. This full recovery, perhaps to pre-colonial levels, left the bay region with the highest osprey population in the world — a remarkable success story!
There is much to admire about these comeback kids who visibly nest on structures including light stanchions, telephone poles and channel markers. Ospreys are monogamous, mate for life with high nest fidelity and both parents take part in chick rearing.
They typically produce three eggs that hatch at about 38 days. Chicks fledge in about 55 days. Until recently, an average of 1.5 chicks survived. Osprey life spans are between 8-10 years, with a few reaching their 20s.
This sea hawk is a superb hunter, hovering over the water with eyesight that spots fish below the surface. They plunge dive grabbing fish in their talons. Ospreys close their third eyelid when diving — serving as goggles — to see underwater.
by Virginia is depleting menhaden and starving ospreys, impacting rockfish and the entire food chain in the
Chesapeake.
Prickly pads on their soles help grip slippery fish. I have never seen one drop a fish. They have a high hunting success rate, averaging 25%, with some birds achieving 70%.
If Rachel Carson had not written Silent Spring in 1962, spurring the decade long fight to ban DDT, perhaps there would be nothing to celebrate. This insecticide was widely used in agriculture and mosquito spraying, with strong opposition to banning it from chemical manufacturers and agribusiness.
Opponents predicted financial disaster and malaria outbreaks, neither of which occurred. Bald eagles and peregrine falcons, as well as some songbirds, were also on their way to extinction from DDT, but it was human cancer concerns that primarily prodded the DDT ban.
Unfortunately, osprey starvation poses a major and increasing threat to Chesapeake ospreys. The overharvest of Atlantic menhaden, a once abundant oily, nutrient-dense fish, has caused a potential osprey collapse.
A study in the mid-1980s found that this “most important fish you never heard of” made up 75% of osprey food. Ospreys much prefer menhaden to other fish because of their nutrient and fat densities and because they school on the surface and are easily accessible.
In July, William and Mary scientists documented the lowest number of osprey chicks in 50 years of nest surveys at Mobjack Bay, Virginia. Just 17 nests of 167 surveyed produced young, 17 chicks in total, as most chicks starved to death, most in the first week after hatching.
Researchers believe these deaths are inextricably linked to overharvest of menhaden. This crashing of nest success has been occurring for 15 years and it is getting much worse.
The number of chicks produced per nest is now less than occurred during the height of the DDT era in the 1970s. The problem is widespread as nesting sites on Poplar Island and the lower Patuxent River document collapsed numbers of osprey chicks. Another major osprey population decline might occur.
Just as producers and users of DDT blocked a ban for a decade after Silent Spring, Omega Protein Corp. has blocked meaningful reductions in menhaden harvest.
This Canadian corporation operates the only remaining menhaden rendering plant left on the East Coast in Reedville, Virginia. Ocean trawlers, at 195-feet long, use spotter planes to net tens of millions of menhaden in the lower bay and offshore Atlantic waters. Such trawlers were banned in Maryland 50 years ago.
The fish are processed into fish meal, oil, and used in animal feed, fertilizer, and Omega-3 supplements for humans. Omega Protein’s parent corporation, Cooke Inc., also uses processed menhaden to feed salmon in its fish farms.
Omega Protein is responsible for 70% of all coastal menhaden landings. The other 30% are caught for commercial crab, lobster and hook-and-line fisheries. Called bunker, the oily fish is widely used in crab pots, the main blue crab harvest method.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the coast-wide federal body charged with fishery management, disturbingly increased the allowable coast-wide menhaden harvest to 233,550 metric tons for 2023 and 2024 — a 20% increase.
This allows 514,889,613 pounds of menhaden to be taken, the weight of 97,443 Chevy Tahoe SUVs. The major Chesapeake Bay fishery was kept at 51,000 metric tons, about 244 million fish.
These extensive harvests leave less food for ospreys and other species as menhaden are a keystone species fulfilling a crucial ecological role. Rockfish depend on menhaden and their plunging numbers also are linked to menhaden harvest.
Menhaden also are prime prey for many bird species including bald eagles and great blue herons. Importantly, they are filter feeders cleaning bay waters.
I have been saddened by a pair of first-year ospreys trying hard to erect a nest of sticks on the top of a nearby boat. Unsuccessful, they hung out together each day for months in the same tree, calling to one another.
Then, the female disappeared while the lonely male remains still perching by himself. Adding to my angst, a prime pole nest site between the creek and the bay has hosted an osprey pair for 26 years. For the first time, the mated ospreys abandoned the nest with no chicks. Are these failures linked to starvation?
Conservationists have been fighting for decades to stop the excessive harvest of the silvery foot-long menhaden, Clearly, Omega Protein’s bay harvest should be ended or at least significantly reduced to protect the most important fish in the sea and our beloved ospreys from a horrible death by starvation — and, to prevent the unraveling of the bay ecosystem.
Omega Protein has influenced Virginia’s political leadership with intensive lobbying and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. Omega Protein hired the retiring Maryland DNR chief of fisheries to lobby against his own state’s position assisting in blocking meaningful restrictions to its massive harvest.
A lawsuit filed in Virginia on May 10 by the Southern Maryland Recreational Fishing Organization against the Virginia Marine Resources Commission seeks to block increased menhaden catch. Let’s hope David Reed and the Chesapeake Legal Alliance prevail.
Gerald Winegrad represented the greater Annapolis area as a Democrat in the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate for 16 years. Contact him at gwwabc@comcast.net.
