Osprey came back from the brink once. Now chicks are dying in nests, and some blame overfishing

Gloucester point, go. – By entering an old blind man blind in the middle of the York river, Bryan Watts looks at a circle of sticks and gables on the altered and splashed platform of Guano. It is a failing Balbuzard nest, taken care of by diving slars.

“Birds have never landed here this year,” Watts said near the mouth of the Chesapeake bay in Virginia. “And this is a model that we have seen in the past two years.”

Watts has a more intimate relationship with the Balbuzo than most people with a bird – it climbed into their nests to release them from plastic bags, fed them by hand and watched their eggs with telescopic mirrors.

The Raptor of fish eater known for gymnastics dives and chill -shaped chirping is a story of American conservation success. After pesticides and other dangers almost eliminated the species from a large part of the country, the bird similar to a hawk rebounded after the DDT ban in 1972 and now thousands of people in the United States

But Watts has documented an alarming trend. Birds, which reproduce in many regions of the United States, fail to share their chicks successfully in their key population center in Chesapeake. The long -standing biologist blames the decline of Menhaden, a small school fish essential to the oscrey diet. Without Menhaden to eat, the chicks are hungry and die in nests, Watts said.

Watts’ assertion has contradicted it with the fishing industry, unions and sometimes government regulators. Menhaden has a precious value for fish oil, fish flours and agricultural foods as well as for bait.

American fishermen have captured at least 1.1 billion pounds from Menhaden each year since 1951. Members of the industry are praising its sustainability and said that the decrease in the oscrey could have nothing to do with fishing.

But without help, the population of Balbuzards track could tumble at unaware levels since the dark days of DDT, said Watts, director of the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginie.

“Balbuzards scream quite strong enough that, hey, there are not enough menhaden so that we can successfully reproduce each other,” said Watts. “And we should listen to them to be fully informed entirely on the side of peaches, and we have to take precautions on the side of fishing. But that did not win the day at this stage.”

Watts, who has studied the Fisherman’s Balbuzard on the Chesapeake for decades, has supported his claims to decrease the population by publishing studies in scientific journals. He said that this comes down to a simple statistic – to maintain the population, the pairs of benchings owe an average of 1.15 chicks per year.

Osprey reproduced at this level in the 1980s, but today in certain areas around the main stem of the Chesapeake, it is less than half of this, Watts said. In areas particularly in distress, they do not even reproduce a tenth of this level, he said. And the drop in Menhaden available corresponds to the nesting failure areas, Watts said.

Also also called pogies or bunkers, fatty menhaden are particularly important for young birds because they are more nutritious than other seafish. Osprey “Reproductive performance is inextricably linked to availability and abundance” of Menhaden, Watts wrote in a 2023 study published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

Ecologists have been concerned for years, saying that too many menhaden have been removed to maintain their crucial role in the oceanic food chain. The historian H. Bruce Franklin went to the title of his 2007 book on Menhaden “The most important fish in the sea”.

Menhaden helps support one of the largest fisheries in the world, worth more than $ 200 million on the quays in 2023. Used as bait, fish are essential for precious commercial targets such as Maine lobster. They are also loved by Sportfishermen.

Modern industry is dominated by the Omega protein, a company from Reedville, Virginia, which is a subsidiary of the Canadian Aquaculture Cooke giant. The company has rejected the idea that fishing is the cause of a decline in fishermen, although it has recognized that less Menhaden appear in certain parts of the bay.

Federal data show that balbuzerrisons is declined in many regions of the country, including where Menhaden is not at all harvested, said Ben Landry, spokesperson for Omega. Climate change, pollution and development could play a role, said Landry and other people with the company.

Back the fishing “it is enough to draw environmental special interest groups that have an influence on the process,” said Landry.

Menhaden fishing is managed by Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, an interstate body that draws up rules and establishes fishing quotas. Presented by questions about the Balbuzophonies, he created a working group to deal with the precaution of species of the Chesapeake Bay.

In April, this group proposed several potential management approaches, including seasonal closings, restrictions on quotas or sea days, and limitations on the types of fishing equipment. The process of creating new rules could start this summer, said James Boyle, coordinator of the fisheries management plan with the Commission.

The population of Balbuzard Fishermen has indeed shown decreases in certain regions since 2012, but it is important to remember that the population of the bird is much greater than it was before the prohibition of the DDT, said Boyle.

“There are large increases in the population of the fisherman’s Balbuzard from the DDT era,” said federal data showing a six -time increase in the populations of fishermen along the Atlantic coast since the 1960s.

For a number of environmental groups, any drop is too much. This irritates some labor leaders who are worried about losing more jobs as the fishing industry decreases.

Kenny Pinkard, retirement vice-president of the board of directors of the local section of the 400 of the UFCW and the longtime fishermen from Virginia, said that it thought that the industry was in scapegoat.

“There are people who just don’t want to see us in business,” he said.

But Chris Moore, Executive Director of Virginia for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the country risks losing an emblematic bird if no measure was taken. He said Watts’ studies show that the fisherman will fail without access to Menhaden.

“Osprey was a success,” said Moore. “We are in a situation where they do not replace their figures. We will actually be in a situation where we are in a sharp decline. ”

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Whittle reported in Portland, Maine.

___ This story was supported by the financing of the Walton Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.