My recent article about pressure to change oyster sanctuary boundaries In Maryland quickly grew into a torrent of criticism, dialogue, and additional official comments, corrections, and clarification of issues discussed.

I will present some of that information here while also thanking those who took the time to help me further understand the complexity of issues swirling around an organism as humble as an oyster.

The magnitude of the effort to continue revitalizing the Chesapeake Bay oyster population involves thousands of people, hundreds of public and private organizations, and the expenditure over the past several years of millions and millions of public and private dollars. It is both mind boggling and inspiring.

See the chart and map below to get a feel for some of that effort, especially the list of participating organizations.

Sanctuary Boundaries

Changes may be coming to sanctuary boundaries as requested, but it won’t be happening quickly.

At a public hearing last week in Annapolis, Department of Natural Resources (DNR) officials said part of legislation sponsored by Sen. Johnny Mautz and Delegate Chris Adams giving the state sole authority to change sanctuary boundaries is no longer necessary.  That’s based on an updated Oyster Management Plan announced recently.

Watermen organizations sought the change with an eye toward being able to work some of the thousands of acres of oyster sanctuaries now off limits.

Gregg Bortz, DNR media relations manager, sent an email to explain:

“Based on the updated Oyster Management Plan going into effect, DNR can move boundaries of unrestored oyster sanctuaries, but right now we do not have specific plans or a timetable on identifying any changes. We need to engage in the full public process and apply the best available science to determine what we may do with those unrestored sanctuaries that are not producing oysters. These are areas that were acknowledged to be poor for oysters, with little to no habitat when they were created; they need some sort of investment to become productive, which could include large-scale restoration, aquaculture, or some plan for wild harvest. Going forward, the Oyster Advisory Commission would need to discuss any proposals for changes. DNR would listen to recommendations before taking any action.”

Regarding a request in the Mautz/Adams legislation to open certain public grounds in Eastern Bay for commercial power dredging, no action has been taken.

“The department is opposed,” said Bortz. “The area does not receive sufficient spat set to support the use of power dredge. We have studies that show power dredging is not sustainable in areas where there is limited oyster recruitment, and it would also remove valuable spawning age oysters.”

On Tuesday this week, Mautz said the overall legislation giving DNR sole authority to make boundary changes without a requirement for agreement from several other non-governmental agencies is being amended. “Eastern Bay power dredging is likely to be removed, DNR will also remove its opposition, and it will move forward.”

Restored vs. unrestored sanctuaries

Regarding productivity found in samplings taken from 51 sanctuaries, last week’s article did not distinguish between restored sanctuaries and unrestored sanctuaries as it should have. Restored sanctuaries include those in Harris Creek, and Tred Avon and Little Choptank rivers, and several others down the Bay.

Those being restored, with infusion of shells, little oysters and other bottom improvements for spat attachment, have received the bulk of the millions spent for improving oyster populations.

Surveys of those sanctuaries show success, with sampling showing productivity meeting or exceeding goals. The restored sanctuaries mentioned have received large infusions of federal dollars and as such are permanently off limits for harvesting.

The intent is for them to become productive and self-sustaining beds which will spin-off lots of larvae and small oysters for the benefit of other commercial wild and cultivated beds in surrounding waters.  That would be good for the economy and the ecology of the Chesapeake since oysters are such significant filters for the Bay.

Unrestored sanctuary beds showing little or no productivity in recent years would likely be candidates for boundary changes allowing watermen to work them with possible restoration efforts that could lead to future commercial harvesting.

Restoration work is carried out by the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Maryland Oyster Restoration Interagency Workgroup, a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District, the Oyster Recovery Partnership and the Maryland DNR.

Siltation without cultivation

Bortz provided this rejoinder from DNR Senior Shellfish Biologist Mitch Tarnowski regarding the oft-stated concern that uncultivated oyster beds lead to smothering and death of oysters from accumulating silt:

“Oysters evolved over the millennia to live in silty estuarine environments. They have coping mechanisms such as building elevated reefs to stay above the muddy floor of the sea bottom, avoiding smothering. Sanctuaries, by prohibiting harvesting, are attempting to rebuild this natural relief. Opening sanctuaries to rotational harvests would (a.) knock down any elevation so far attained on these reefs and (b.) negate these areas as sanctuaries since the point is protect these reefs from oystering activity.

“Surveys have found no evidence of smothering in these sanctuaries, which are over ten years old. The notion that siltation from the Susquehanna River via the Conowingo dam impacts oysters in the Choptank tributaries, or St. Marys River, or Tangier Sound and its tributaries is simply incorrect. If there is a storm event producing a large sediment load, the plume is usually confined to the upper bay; even if it sneaks below the Bay Bridge the plume doesn’t stray outside of the mainstem of the Bay. Beyond the siltation issue, the shell habitat is generally better in these sanctuaries, while shell habitat in some of the heaviest worked areas has been thinned out through mechanical harvesting.”

Reaching 10 billion oyster target

Chesapeake Bay Foundation recently announced that its Chesapeake Oyster Alliance (COA) has recorded a new total of 6 billion oysters directly added to the Bay since 2017.

The announcement notes that “COA’s count aims to include all oysters directly added to the Bay and its tributaries through restoration and aquaculture. These efforts have now surpassed the halfway mark to the group’s goal to promote adding 10 billion new oysters to the Bay by 2025.

“The majority of contributions toward the 10 billion oyster goal come from major restoration initiatives in Maryland and Virginia targeted towards 11 Bay tributaries, which are on track to be completed by 2025.

“We’re seeing an exciting oyster renaissance on the Bay, from massive tributary scale efforts down to widespread citizen involvement and public awareness.  At least six billion oysters have been added to the Chesapeake in recent years thanks to heroic work by Maryland and Virginia, federal partners, and COA aquaculture and restoration partners,” said Tanner Council, COA Senior Manager for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.”

“Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) founded the Chesapeake Oyster Alliance in 2018 to spark momentum and innovation to bring back oysters from historically low levels. COA has grown to include more than 110 nonprofits, academic institutions, businesses, and aquaculture operations. Together, these partners advocate for accelerating oyster restoration, science-based fisheries management and expanding the oyster aquaculture industry throughout the Bay.”

Economy and ecology

State officials testifying at last week’s House hearing, and in comments following last week’s article about sanctuary changes, were careful to emphasize that DNR employees serve as “stewards of this public trust resource.”

Referring to increasing oyster populations, they noted that they have an obligation to not only protect the economic interests of the state’s watermen but also the ecological interests of the six million residents of the Chesapeake Bay region who will benefit from an increasingly healthy Bay system.

Jim Mullin, executive of the Maryland Oystermen Association, told legislators at last week’s hearing that the failing, unrestored sanctuaries present an opportunity: “We need to take shells up from other parts of the Bay and seed these failing sanctuaries,” he said.  “Funds should be moved to pilot projects where we could use our own equipment and personnel. We want to be part of the solution.”

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist, and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972.  He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.

As kids, we drove through the farm fields of Kent County with our old man, heading out to Remington Farms to look at geese and ducks on ponds, watching deer coming out at dusk, stopping along Brice’s Mill Road when we saw a red fox loping across a rise in the landscape.

With the engine cut off on the side of the road, windows rolled down, ears focused, we would listen and hear the distinctive whistles of bobwhite quail gathering in their coveys.  Butts in and faces out, they would circle up in tight ground roosts for their night’s rest, shoulder to shoulder, conserving heat.  The next day, the only evidence of their roost would be the remaining small white pile of guano deposited at the very center of their tightly choreographed survival routine.

Those bobwhite calls were an accepted element of the rural Eastern Shore soundscape.  Were, because now, finding a covey of wild-bred bobwhites on the Delmarva Peninsula is a nearly impossible rarity.

Chalk it up to loss of habitat resulting from development, removal of hedgerows due to conglomeration of farms and more intensive agricultural practices, and predation for eggs and meat by foxes, possums, raccoons and snakes.

Hunters were among the predators at one time.  That was decades ago when there were enough birds to hunt. For sustainability, most hunters were careful to take only four or five birds out of a covey of 15 or 20 quail. Even getting those four or five quail is no easy task. When flushed from dense cover, coveys explode into the air and fly like the wind in all directions. Only well-practiced shots bag more than a few quail.

Because of conservation-minded individuals and organizations, there are glimmers of hope that the tide leading to loss of sustainable habitat for bobwhite quail may be turning.

More on that, but first let’s shift geographical gears.

A few weeks back, a small group of us drove 18-hours westward, out of the tidewater Chesapeake region, over the quietly majestic Appalachians, across the mighty Mississippi, and onto the vast plains of the midwest – generally – and into central Iowa specifically.

The goal: hunt pheasants and quail over trained bird dogs: setters and pointers. There, terracing for conservation as well as natural draws and little creeks that drain the rolling land provide plenty of tall-grassed and scrub-treed habitat for those game birds. Corn and soybean fields adjacent to the draws provide an irresistible combination of food and cover for successful quail and pheasant propagation.

Delmarva, by the way, has never sustained populations of pheasants.  The lack of limestone on this big sandy spit of ours appears to be the missing ingredient.

Not so there in Iowa.  We found plenty of quail and pheasant to keep the dogs and us busy.

At the end of one hunt, I found myself in the middle of a large patch of milkweed. The cracked and dried pods revealed shiny and silky white filaments. Caught by wind and breezes, those filaments spread the little brown seeds attached to them.  Nature’s way of cultivating more and more stands of milkweed.

The farmer who directed us to good hunting spots said the milkweed stands were part of a government-sponsored conservation program designed to provide more habitat for monarch butterflies.  Their caterpillar stage feeds only on milkweed leaves.

It’s nice to keep the monarchs alive by cultivating patches throughout the United States to sustain them on their long flights back and forth to their Mecca in Mexico. But in addition to the monarchs providing natural beauty to our lives, they also are among the many pollinators so critical to plant life. Spreads of milkweed and neighboring grasses also provide habitat for many other pollinators and larger creatures on up the food chain.

Whether the Delmarva Peninsula will ever see a return of sustainable populations of wild, bobwhite quail like those we saw in Iowa depends in large part on the efforts of conservation groups working to preserve open space, and programs like the Natural Lands initiative being promoted by Washington College in Chestertown. That program encourages farmers and other landowners to adopt land management practices aimed at reversing the loss of habitat.

On thousands of acres along the Queen Anne’s County side of the upper Chester River, the college and its students have followed the lead of a private landowner in creation of meadowy habitats specifically designed to encourage the return of quail populations.  At the same time, associated benefits include providing natural habitat for butterflies and bees and other pollinators.

It’s all connected and part of the responsibility we all share as stewards of this incredibly bountiful and beautiful global garden entrusted to us by nature.

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972.  He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.

Long-time Talbot County resident and sailor Roger Vaughan loves to write. It’s tempting to say he writes first, then breathes.

A professional biographer, columnist, feature writer and novelist, his credit list is long and diverse, heavy on competitive sports and the arts.  Conductor Herbert von  Karajan, professional hockey, Ted Turner, golf, baseball’s Tony Gwynne are all among his many subjects.

At the top of the impressive heap though is sailing – professional and competitive sailing.

Deft and experienced, Vaughan brings all of his deep breadth and craft into play in his most recent novel, Coming Again. Sequel to Coming About, his first novel, Coming Again offers another enjoyable and intriguing read centered in an around-the-world sailing race. The two books first appeared in monthly serial form over the past couple of years in the Tidewater Times, a regional publication. They are now available as full-length books in print or electronic format through Amazon.

A quick synopsis of Coming About sets the stage for Coming Again:

“Andy Moss, a wealthy, spoiled young man with too much alcohol under his belt, commits a social gaff at a New York Yacht Club dinner that makes it impossible for his father not to enter a boat in The Round the World Race. Furious, the father forces his son to participate as a crewman in the arduous, 30,000 mile event. Faced with spending nine months at sea imprisoned in the spartan confines of a 60-foot race boat with eleven strangers, Andy desperately struggles to unravel the mysteries that surround his family; mysteries that have haunted his own life. First, he has to survive the Roaring 40s – the untamed Southern Ocean – and the threat that awaits him on board.”

Those mysteries revealed, Coming Again picks up where the first book leaves off: the round-the world race still underway and the redeemable Andy still center stage. Always searching for cleaner air to win races real and metaphorical, weaving his way through beatings and betrayals, navigating the full spectrum of good and evil, Andy aims for a triumphant conclusion through all of the twists and turns concocted for him by the author.

Vaughan shows off his sailing chops in Coming Again’s Chapter 8, The Tasman. He rolls out a rollicking ride of exciting and occasional technical bluewater sailing writing. The juice comes strong.

The novel’s main man is steering All American on a 1,200 mile leg between Sydney in Australia and Auckland in New Zealand, racing for a first-place finish in this and future legs against Ram Bunctious, another entry in the race.

“For Andy, once into the rhythm of it, the pleasure, the satisfaction, was immense. It was like steering a high performance dinghy, a 470, or a Melges, only frighteningly more impressive when All American planed down a wave and all sixty feet of it was so in tune with wind and water that it felt suspended in time and space – steady as a rock, locked into a slender groove – with the speedo climbing to twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-seven; with helm, boat and sails seeming frozen for as much as five or eight seconds (a forever moment), pushing through the reality of that tenuous envelope of performance the designer had glimpsed in his dreams.”

The author mixes into the salty recipe the tension of matching physical and mental wits against the careless power of unpredictable weather. A smuggling backstory, involving millions of dollars worth of precious gems secreted aboard All American, spices the narrative with a shroud of extra tension sustaining the reader’s urge to keep on turning the pages to the book’s finish. And, while walking out a diverse cast of characters from the sexy and vengeful Isha and her  pot-smoking, sidekick vixen Jodi, to two corrupt father figures and a former New York Jets linebacker grinding All American’s winches, Vaughan also finds calm moments to contrast it all with philosophy and environmental concern.

In a chapter about leaving the Pacific and rounding the dangerous Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America into the unpredictable southern Atlantic, All American crew members reflect on their narrow escape from an encounter that could have spelled the demise of all.

“What could have been – the boat holed and sinking quickly beneath their feet, serious injuries, the mast coming down and many days in  a life raft if the thing even inflated – chilled their dreams.  Once they have put their lives in Mother Nature’s hands, ocean sailors are superstitious  creatures. Collectively the crew kept wondering why they had been spared. … Stu Samuels had put it best.  ‘Mother Nature simply isn’t that friendly,’ he said, ‘or that empathetic with us humans who are savaging her planet with carbon dioxide …. Seriously you have to ask why.  You do. We’re not a bunch of choir boys.  We’re freaking sailors.  We live selfish lives driven by the desire to be at sea.  We’re like those Joseph Conrad sailors who get in trouble when they’re ashore for more than a couple of days. Unless we’re jibing the chute or trimming the backstay we’re basically irresponsible wayfarers who drink too much and shirk normal responsibilities.  Why’d she save our sorry asses?’”

Add contemporary questioning to the author’s satisfying literary blend.

Coming Again and its predecessor, both good reads, carry their audience effortlessly to the finish. The only remaining question is where will the author focus his attention next.

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972.  He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.