The Chesapeake is an entire ecosystem in and of itself and a food chain like any food chain if you alter one component there's a domino effect on the entire chain, including ocean dwellers which depend on menhaden for forage. Osprey egg population could be down for a number of reasons, but lack of forage or eating fish in a very polluted system because Cooke Inc. has destroyed natures natural filtration system in the Bay would be at the top of my list.
This isn't the first time the osprey population declined in an alarming manner. Most of the issues have been pollution and loss of habitat, specifically DDT's and PCB's. Build up of toxins was causing eggs to die before hatching, eggs shells weren't developing. See attached articles:
https://oystersforthebay.com/2019/04...of-the-osprey/
https://rachelcarsoncouncil.org/ospr...-20th-century/
Remove a substantial portion of the menhaden from the Chesapeake and we've removed nature's natural filtration system. Everything living in the bay will be effected including human consumption of shellfish which Virginia, ASMFC and other state and federal regulatory bodies don't appear to care about as long as Cooke Inc. provides kick backs to local politicians.
Add to that the continued and growing agricultural pesticides and urban run off in the Bay and we have a problem of epic proportion that will impact the Bay and many coastal states, anyone consuming fish or shellfish from the Chesapeake and all wildlife dependent on the Bay for sustenance. The issue we're seeing with the striped bass population is the tip of the iceberg or "the canary in the coal mine". It's not alright to kick Cooke Inc. out of the Bay, slash their annual ocean quota and protect our natural resources but it's ok for people to get cancer from harvesting multiple other species from the largest and most polluted Bay on the east coast and let multiple other species succumb to the same or the impacts of overharvesting the number one forage fish in our local waters.
Kick the can down road for another two years, I'm sure that will help the current situation.
