. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. oundToSea. Natural Wonders of the Coast Striped Bass: A Heritage of Good Taste Twenty-five years ago, anglers could wade knee-deep in the Hatteras surf, cast a line just beyond the breakers and expect the tug-of-war it took to haul in a 40-pound striper. Not anymore. Stripers, more correctly known as striped bass, have suffered sharp declines in populations all along the East Coast during the last 20 years. The reason? Pollution, overfishing and loss of spawning habitat. In fact, populations became so scar
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. oundToSea. Natural Wonders of the Coast Striped Bass: A Heritage of Good Taste Twenty-five years ago, anglers could wade knee-deep in the Hatteras surf, cast a line just beyond the breakers and expect the tug-of-war it took to haul in a 40-pound striper. Not anymore. Stripers, more correctly known as striped bass, have suffered sharp declines in populations all along the East Coast during the last 20 years. The reason? Pollution, overfishing and loss of spawning habitat. In fact, populations became so scarce that federal and state fishery resource managers along the Eastern Seaboard slapped a bevy of regulations, restrictions and moratoriums on the recre- ational and commercial capture of stripers. Everyone was interested in rescuing the fish that meant so much to sportsmen, commercial fishermen and the history of this nation. From his Jamestown settlement in Virginia, Captain John Smith made early note of the abundance and size of the striped bass he found in the rivers of the Chesapeake. "The Basse is an excellent Fish, both fresh and ; he wrote. "They are so large, the head will give a good eater a dinner, and for daintinesse of diet they excell the Marybones of Beefe. There are such multitudes that I have seene ... so many as will bade a ship of 100 ; The Plymouth colonists also found the striped bass in ample supply and made them a regular part of their diet. In fact, they prefened the stripers to salmon. The Massachusetts colony became so zealous in their consumption and use of striped bass as a fertilizer for farm crops that harvests diminished. In 1639, the Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered that neither striped bass nor cod could be used as fertilizer. A subsequent act in 1670 declared that income derived from the Cape Cod striped bass, mackerel and hening fisheries be used to build a free school. This legislation resulted in the first publ
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcollectionunclibra, booksubjectoceanography
