Seminar: Dr. Vic Kennedy (UMCES-CBL)

Title: Depleting the Immense Protein Factory that was Chesapeake Bay

Speaker: Dr. Vic Kennedy (UMCES-CBL)

Host: Dr. Sook Chung

Abstract: 

In 1940, Baltimore newspaper reporter H.L. Mencken referred to Chesapeake Bay as "the immense protein factory". In the late 19th century, an extensive infrastructure of boats, harvest gear, and processing facilities exploited this bounty. Fishers harvested millions of oysters, blue crabs, and shad and river herring, and thousands of sturgeon and terrapins. Processors shucked and canned oysters, salted and smoked fish, picked crab meat, nurtured soft crabs, and turned terrapins into gourmet food. Workers made millions of cans and labels for oysters and thousands of wooden barrels for salt fish. Others built sailboats for oyster dredgers, oyster tongers, and crab trotliners; made sails and ships’ cordage; fabricated oyster tongs, dredges, and crab scrapes; and wove miles of fish netting. The rich fisheries supported work for thousands more people than now.

Virginia and Maryland supplied more oysters each year than any other region in North America and Europe, yielding nearly 20 million bushels in 1885 compared with 900,000+ bushels today. There were over 80 oyster processing plants in Baltimore alone, and many others in Maryland and Virginia tidewater cities. These facilities employed thousands of shuckers and canners and bought oysters from thousands of dredge boat sailors and small-boat tongers. Railroad cars carried cans of blue crab meat and trays of soft-shell crabs from some tidewater villages to cities six days a week in season. The shad and river herring industry, second only to the oyster industry in its economic value. captured hundreds of millions of fish in a 2-month period in spring in the 1800s, using thousands of pound- and gill-nets and numerous miles-long purse seines. Sturgeon and terrapins were everywhere.

As the fisheries were over-exploited, the bounty was depleted. Oyster and crab harvests are low and there are bans on harvesting shad, river herring, sturgeon, and terrapins.  Eyewitness reports by early colonists as well as historical newspaper articles and federal and state management reports from the 1800s-early 1900s paint a picture of a cornucopia that one can now only imagine. The depletion of these resources raises the question of how Bay food webs might have been affected.

Contact imetdirectorsoffice@umces.edu for meeting details.