On the Bay

Crabbers in Maryland usually start working weeks before the blue crabs start moving out of the mud where they overwinter. That’s especially true for the handful of watermen who set up bank traps designed to catch peelers, hard crabs that are getting ready to molt, to shed their shells and morph, for a brief period, into soft crabs.

To reduce the spread of aquatic invasive species, a project led by Maryland Sea Grant educated fishers to properly dispose of the seaweed packaging used to ship blood worms. The message: please throw away the packaging in the trash, don't drop it into the Bay.

Aquaponics may not be a household term just yet. But this method of producing food -- which combines the practice of raising fish with growing vegetables -- is becoming increasingly popular among urban farmers. Read more...

In the scientific world, numbers are like smart phones: by the time you get them out of the store, they're often out of date.

In a story last September I wrote that for much of the twentieth century, sea levels rose by "around 1.7 millimeters a year."

There was only one boat hauling up crabs in Maryland waters in the winter of 2014. It was  a classic 45-foot Chesapeake Bay workboat, and its captain was Roger Morris, a long-time waterman from Dorchester County. Read more...