aquaculture

St. Mary's College of Maryland was warned earlier this month that its accreditation could be in jeopardy if it does not address how it assesses student learning.

By Carrie Wells

Mar 14, 2016

Tony Conrad started out working in an office on weekdays and crabbing on the weekend to make extra money. Now, he operates four outlets for crabs, including Conrad's seafood market on Joppa Road in Parkville and the new restaurant Conrad's in Perry Hall.

A federal council took a preliminary step Monday toward protecting deep-sea corals off Maryland and the rest of the mid-Atlantic coast.

Eighty miles southeast of Ocean City, scientists aboard the federal research vessel Henry B. Bigelow are exploring a lush underwater landscape that until recently few would have imagined —colorful corals clinging to the rocky slopes of deep-sea canyons.

The Tred Avon is targeted for a $14.3 million oyster restoration effort, jointly underwritten by Maryland and the federal government, to begin later this year. NOAA has been fishing the river monthly from spring through fall since last year to see how many fish and crabs also hang out in the water near Oxford.

Mainstream supermarkets are starting to look a lot more like organic grocers. Brands such as Whole Foods Market have built a following with their all-natural offerings. But in the race to win over consumers concerned about health and the environment, traditional grocers such as Safeway are increasingly touting sustainable seafood and expanded natural product lines.

Hutz Hot Dogs held its debut on July 4 at the corner of East Drive and Sulphur Spring Road

In honor of starting its business one century ago, Phillips Seafood has announced the launch of a 100 Days of Summer promotion.

According to a new study of the top U.S. seafood imports, an estimated 20 to 32 percent of the wild-caught seafood crossing our borders was found to have originated from illegal sources. Other recent research has have found that up to 33 percent of seafood samples tested in the U.S. were mislabeled, substituting one species of fish for another. The inability to distinguish between legally and illegally caught fish undermines progress being made both in the U.S. and abroad, puts law-abiding

Tucked amid the woods of northern Baltimore County is one of Maryland's natural gems – the Big Gunpowder Falls, a nationally renowned trout stream that draws anglers from far and wide to try their skills and luck in the cold, rushing water.

The Obama administration announced on Tuesday an initiative to track every fish sold in the United States — a move designed to crack down on illegal fishing, mislabeling of seafood and related problems.

With trout attracted to mayfly nymphs in May and June, anglers on the Gunpowder River in Maryland are taking advantage of their opportunities to catch an elusive species of freshwater fish.

Chesapeake oysters, long a hard-working staple food of the region, are growing up and getting glam

The story collection "Singapore Noir," explores a nation misunderstood by the West

There have been a lot of efforts to protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay. Those efforts are noble. But they're not enough. It's beyond time to get serious about doing something. The time for studying is over. It's time for action.

There have been a lot of efforts to protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay. Those efforts are noble. But they're not enough. It's beyond time to get serious about doing something. The time for studying is over. It's time for action.

When Severn resident Dr. Joan M.E. Gaither was born nearly 70 years ago, the word "negro" was imprinted on her birth certificate.

Amid warnings that slashing the striped bass catch by a third next year could devastate Chesapeake Bay commercial fishermen, Atlantic states regulators agreed Tuesday to consider gradually reducing the catch over three years instead.

Worried by recent declines in Maryland's state fish, Atlantic states fisheries regulators are weighing slashing the annual striped bass catch by up to one-third next year all along the East Coast and in the Chesapeake Bay.

With oysters showing signs of revival in the Chesapeake Bay, some are trying to bring the bivalves back in the bay's second largest tributary, the Potomac River.

The news last week that we could expect another season of relatively scarce, and therefore expensive, blue crabs means we cannot continue to tinker with the bay itself via fisheries management and other restoration tools, although that needs to continue. What we see now is that systemic management of the entire Chesapeake Watershed is necessary, and that is an expensive proposition.

At the root of the decline in female blue crabs are two factors: overharvest and poor environmental conditions. But it's not too late to turn things around.

The Maryland Seafood Marketing Program has started up its fourth season of chef education tours

A moratorium on the blue crab harvest isn't the answer.

Latest survey results suggest Chesapeake Bay blue crabs will be in short supply this year and that more must be done to protect their future

The Chesapeake Bay's blue crab population remains at a low level for the second straight year, officials announced Thursday, blaming the severe winter for killing off a large number of the iconic crustaceans.

When a shark tagged off the Eastern Shore as part of a marine-life tracking project took off on an unprecedented monthlong journey, researchers quite literally watched its every move.

A bill introduced Wednesday in Annapolis would make it illegal for restaurants or markets to mislabel the seafood they sell, and moreover would require them to specify where their crabmeat came from.

Human beings have figured out a number of ways to beat the cold ¿ heavy coats, blankets, wood stoves, central heating ¿ but animals have everything they need to stay warm, either already on their bodies or what can be found in their environment, according to one Harford County naturalist.

Maryland is changing the way it lets striped bass be caught for sale, ending decades of regulating the popular Chesapeake Bay fish by limiting the times when it can be harvested. Starting Jan. 1, commercial fishermen will have individual quotas of striped bass they can catch most any time, not just in the relative handful of days permitted this year.

U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said Congress left more than a million families a "lump of coal in their stocking" when it failed to address expiring federal unemployment benefits, and he joined a chorus of Democrats who are calling on lawmakers to approve a retroactive extension as their first order of business next month.

A recreational fishing group is taking issue with Maryland's plan to increase the allowable catch of striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay next year, calling it "imprudent" in light of troubling trends in the coastwide population of the highly prized migratory fish.

Harbor Point will be built safely without further studies

Additional studies of the Harbor Point area in Baltimore are needed to reduce what can best be defined as an unacceptable level of uncertainty about the safety of a proposed development project there.

Maryland's oyster farming industry is clawing its way back from near oblivion a decade ago, when diseases had decimated the bay's oyster population and its seafood industry

A Dorchester County judge has denied a watermen's group's bid to reopen Maryland's menhaden fishery, but ordered a trial scheduled next spring on how the Department of Natural Resources has imposed catch limits on the prized bait fish.

A bass fishery without equal

Striped bass reproduction in Maryland waters improved this year, but remained well below average, state officials announced. Though sub-par, the 2013 juvenile index isn't low enough to trigger regulatory action by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

A group of Maryland watermen has filed suit seeking to overturn the state's catch limit on menhaden, arguing that it violates state and federal law and that the forage fish is not in need of conservation.

Government agencies and nonprofit groups have produced and planted a record 1.25 billion baby native oysters in Maryland waters this year, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced Friday, declaring it a milestone in the long-running effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay's depleted bivalve population.