aquaculture

• Colleges and Universities

St. Mary's College of Maryland gets accreditation warning

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

• Baltimore County

Weekend waterman from Parkville becomes crab maestro

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.

• Environment

Deep-sea coral protections eyed

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

• Environment

Scientists exploring offshore canyons for Atlantic deep-sea corals

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.

• Maryland

Return to fishing roots

• News

Angling for the benefits of oyster restoration

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.

• Agriculture

Supermarkets boost sustainable seafood offerings

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.

• Baltimore County

New hot dog business on corner in downtown Arbutus

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

• Food & Drink

Phillips is celebrating 100 years in the seafood business

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

• Opinion

Track seafood supply to eliminate fraud [Commentary]

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

• Baltimore County

High flows on Gunpowder stir debate

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.

• Laws and Legislation

Obama proposes initiative on tracking fish

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.

• Maryland

Short list of fishing options for summer

• Maryland

Short list of fishing options for summer

• Maryland

Short list of fishing options for summer

• Lifestyle and Leisure

Sulphur mayfly season a good time to catch trout, 'the Ph.D.s of the fish world'

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.

• Maryland

North Carroll grad Jonathan Danko a 'leader behind the scenes'

• Lifestyle and Leisure

Recreation and outdoors calendar

• Baltimore City Paper

In This Week's City Paper

• Baltimore City Paper

What a Wonderful World

• Food & Drink

Bay oysters find a new market

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

• Maryland

North Carroll High School senior Jonathan Danko set the mold

• Authors

Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan on the seamy underbelly of Singapore

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

• Lifestyle and Leisure

Recreation and outdoors calendar

• Environmental Pollution

Bay acidification requires immediate action [Commentary]

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.

• Opinion

Bay acidification requires immediate action [Commentary]

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.

• Anne Arundel

Severn resident's quilts at Wood Memorial offer look at regional heritage

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

• Environment

Commission to consider gradual rockfish catch limits

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.

• News

New rockfish catch limits eyed

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.

• Environment

Potomac River marina stirs concern for oysters

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.

• Baltimore County

Decline of the bay's crabs raises a political issue [Editorial]

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.

• Opinion

Reversing the crab collapse [Commentary]

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.

• Food & Drink

Chef education tours resume on Chesapeake Bay

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

• Opinion

Crabbing moratorium isn't the answer [Letter]

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

• Opinion

Singing the blues [Editorial]

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

• Environment

Bay crab population decreases

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.

• Science

A shark's tale takes researchers from Ocean City to the Atlantic Ocean

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.

• Environment

Bill seeks truth in crabmeat, seafood labeling

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.

• Harford

Harford County critters get through the winter

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.

• Lifestyle and Leisure

Rockfish quotas stir controversy

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.

• Laws and Legislation

Perez presses Congress on unemployment extension

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.

• Environment

Anglers object to increasing rockfish catch

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.

• Opinion

Harbor Point does not need more studies [Letter]

Harbor Point will be built safely without further studies

• Opinion

Harbor Point environmental questions [Commentary]

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.

• Environment

Passion grows for oyster farming

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

• News

Court denies bid to reopen menhaden fishery

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.

• Opinion

A bass fishery without equal

A bass fishery without equal

• Environment

MD striped bass spawn better but still below average

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.

• Environment

Watermen challenge menhaden catch limits

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.

• Environment

Record hatchery production aids bay's oysters

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.