“Ospreys nesting at multiple sites around the Chesapeake Bay this year failed to produce enough young to sustain their numbers, new data shows. The scientists collecting the data say many chicks apparently starved in areas where the birds subsist mainly on Atlantic menhaden for food. 

That observation, which builds on previous findings of poor osprey reproduction in Mobjack Bay in Virginia, is sure to increase public pressure on fisheries managers to curtail commercial harvests of menhaden in the Chesapeake.

Scientists with the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary and with the U.S. Geological Survey monitored 571 pairs of ospreys from March through August at 12 locations on both shores of the estuary. 

Ten sites were in brackish areas bordering the Bay’s mainstem where water salinity exceeded 10 parts per thousand and ospreys rely largely on menhaden for food. Those included the Lynnhaven, Elizabeth, York and Piankatank rivers in Virginia as well as Mobjack Bay, plus the Patuxent and lower Choptank rivers in Maryland. . .”