VIMS – Preliminary results from an ongoing long-term survey conducted by researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science suggest an average year class of young-of-year striped bass was produced in Virginia tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay in 2018. The 2018 year class represents the group of fish hatched this spring that can grow to fishable sizes in three to four years, if not claimed by natural mortality.

The program, formally known as the Juvenile Striped Bass Seine Survey, recorded a mean value of 10.72 fish per seine haul in the Virginia portion of Chesapeake Bay, which is similar to the historic average of 7.77 fish per seine haul. The 2018 value—which scientists call a recruitment index—was also similar to indices observed in the past five years. Although there can be considerable variation in striped bass recruitment among years, the average indices observed in recent years suggests that abundance of juvenile striped bass has been stable.

Striped bass play an important role as a top predator in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and are a valuable resource for commercial and recreational anglers. Professor Mary Fabrizio, who directs the Juvenile Striped Bass Seine Survey at VIMS, notes that the economic and ecological value of striped bass lends significant interest to the year-to-year status of their population. Field assistants Matt Oliver and Emelia Marshall prepare to measure water temperature and salinity at their sampling site for juvenile striped bass on the James River. © D. Malmquist/VIMS.
Field assistants Matt Oliver and Emelia Marshall prepare to measure water temperature and salinity at their sampling site for juvenile striped bass on the James River. © D. Malmquist/VIMS.
“By estimating the relative number of young-of-year striped bass,” she says, “our survey provides an important measure of annual and long-term trends in the Bay’s striped bass population.”

The VIMS Juvenile Striped Bass Seine Survey currently samples 18 index stations in the Rappahannock, York, and James River watersheds. Biologists sampled each site 5 times from late June to early September in 2018, deploying a 100-foot seine net from the shore. Each fish captured in the net is counted, measured, and returned to the water. These young striped bass usually measure between 1.5-4 inches long. Brian Gallagher, chief scientist for the Juvenile Striped Bass Seine Survey at VIMS, examines the haul from a tow in the James River. © D. Malmquist/VIMS.
Brian Gallagher, chief scientist for the Juvenile Striped Bass Seine Survey at VIMS, examines the haul from a tow in the James River. © D. Malmquist/VIMS.
Survey scientists in Virginia measured 1,875 juvenile striped bass at these stations in 2018. VIMS has been conducting the survey annually since 1967 for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC). The Maryland Department of Natural Resources conducts a similar survey in the northern portion of the Bay.

The striped bass population in the Chesapeake Bay has rebounded from historic lows in the late 1970s and early 1980s, after fishing bans were enacted in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia in the mid- to late-1980s. Since then, the population has increased to the point that striped bass in the Bay and elsewhere are now considered recovered. Monitoring of juvenile striped bass recruitment will continue next year to provide managers with crucial information to sustainably manage this important species.

Birthright citizenship was decided by the US Supreme Court in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) at the height of efforts to restrict Chinese immigration. The plaintiff was born in San Francisco to Chinese parents who were legally domiciled there. The Congress enacted a law prohibiting Chinese people from becoming citizens. The plaintiff left the country and was denied re-entry under federal law that prohibited Chinese people from entering the country.

In his work, economic theorist Murry Rothbard notes that the American model, in which every baby born in the country’s land area automatically becomes a citizen, clearly invites welfare immigration by expectant parents, whereas the French system, in which one has to be born to a citizen to become an automatic citizen, is far closer to the idea of a nation-by-consent.

The question of open borders, or free immigration, has become an accelerating problem for classical liberals because the welfare state increasingly subsidizes immigrants to enter and receive permanent assistance and because cultural boundaries have become increasingly crowded or overrun. Rothbard observed that when the Soviet Union collapsed, it became clear that “ethnic Russians had been encouraged to flood into Estonia and Latvia in order to destroy the cultures and languages of these peoples”, similar to Jean Raspail’s anti-immigration novel The Camp of the Saints, in which virtually the entire population of India decides to move, in small boats, into France, and the French, infected by liberal ideology, cannot summon the will to prevent economic and cultural national destruction.

Rothbard also notes that it is time to rethink the entire concept and function of voting. Should anyone have a “right” to vote? Rose Wilder Lane, the mid-twentieth century U.S. libertarian theorist, was once asked if she believed in womens’ suffrage. “No,” she replied, “and I’m against male suffrage as well.” The Latvians and Estonians have cogently tackled the problem of Russian immigrants by allowing them to continue permanently as residents, but not granting them citizenship or therefore the right to vote. The Swiss welcome temporary guest-workers, but severely discourage permanent immigration, and, as well as citizenship and voting.

What would voting be like in a totally privatized society?

According to Rothbard, not only would voting be diverse, but more importantly, who would really care? For an economist like Rothbard, the purest form of voting is the corporation, or joint-stock company, in which voting is proportionate to one’s share of ownership of the firm’s assets…” there are, and would be, a myriad of private clubs of all sorts. It is usually assumed that club decisions are made on the basis of one vote per member, but that is generally untrue. The best-run and most pleasant clubs are those run by a small, self-perpetuating oligarchy of the ablest and most interested, a system most pleasant for the rank-and-file nonvoting member as well as for the elite. If I am a rank-and-file member of, say a chess club, why should I worry about voting if I am satisfied with the way the club is run? And if I am interested in running things, I would probably be asked to join the ruling elite by the grateful oligarchy, always on the lookout for energetic members. And finally, if I am unhappy about the way the club is run, I can readily quit and join another club, or even form one of my own. That, of course, is one of the great virtues of a free and privatized society, whether we are considering a chess club or a contractual neighborhood community.”

As life becomes either privatized or micro-decentralized, the less important voting becomes, and dilutes the idea that “democracy,” or the “right” to vote, exists as the supreme political good.

In a truly free society,  the voting process should be considered trivial and unimportant at best…not a”right,” apart from a possible mechanism stemming from a consensual contract. Unfortunately, in America, democracy or voting is only important either to join in or ratify the use of the government to control others or to use it as a way of preventing one’s self or one’s group from being controlled.

Voting, however, is at best, an inefficient instrument for self-defense, and it is far better to replace it by breaking up central government power altogether.

NOAA Public Affairs Office on October 16, 2018 – Fish farming–or aquaculture–is a winning situation. It’s a win for the economy, a win for the consumer, and a win for the planet. Seafood farmers along the nation’s coasts are growing fish to help feed a growing population in an environmentally responsible way. And America’s heartland is a key player.

American soybean and other grain crops are improving the ratio of fish needed to feed fish. In the early days of aquaculture, farmed salmon and other carnivorous fish required a mostly wild-capture diet–more than 50 percent of the feed. Today, that is down to about 20 percent.

“There is potential to reach zero percent, for multiple reasons,” said Don Kent, President and CEO of Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute. “First, we can move toward smarter use of fish parts, harnessing what we currently throw away. We don’t eat the head or trimmings left over from processing, for example, which can be recycled into feed instead. Second, advanced feed technology means fish that typically eat other fish in the wild really don’t need to do that in captivity. It’s all a matter of the right balance of the right nutrients.” [Read more…]

This article was written by Bill Sterling, and first appeared in Chesapeake Bay Magazine. It is reprinted here with permission from Chesapeake Bay Magazine and Bill Sterling.

Twenty-five extraordinary Labrador Retrievers and one Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever came, with their handlers, from all over the country and Canada to participate in the 35th North American Hunting Retriever Association (NAHRA) Invitational in Onancock.

The dogs had to reach Master Hunter Retriever level status before getting an invitation to this national field test. They log countless miles on the road and in the air showcasing their skills to earn a place in the annual invitational. Last year’s test was held in Seattle. Next year, it will be in Anchorage.

The Eastern Shore Retrievers Club and president Larry Housman hosted the event at his and Victoria Pepper’s farm, just outside of Onancock.

The dogs compete against a set of standards set forth by the NAHRA instead of against each other. They must demonstrate proficiency in both upland and waterfowl disciplines. Field tests are realistic, simulated hunting scenarios, featuring distances and conditions that hunters would encounter in the field.

Kody Bull, the NAHRA national president who hails from Palmer, Alaska, attended the field tests over the course of three days.

“The Invitational honors and celebrates the dog and the teamwork it took to achieve the Master Hunter status needed to participate in this field test,” said Bull. “We are all rooting for each other because we are competing against a standard, not each other. There’s no first or second place here. We all hope to earn that red, white and blue ribbon at the awards ceremony.”

Many of the handlers have attended the national invitational for years and they see each other at regional events, becoming like family in the process.

“We spend a lot of time away from home, sometimes two or three weekends a month, but this is our passion, although sometimes I call it my money pit,” said Jeff Riesling of Pennsylvania, whose dog, Tank, now 13, is a Grand Master Hunter Champion and still competing when many dogs his age have retired.

Larry Housman, who owns yellow labs Bry and Hank, a Grand Master Hunter Champion VI and a Grand Master Hunter Retriever, said that the best aspect of NAHRA field tests, unlike some other competitions, is that the dogs are being handled by their owners and are also family pets. “Bry and Hank sleep in my bed, although not at the same time. They have to take turns,” said Housman, who recently added a third dog to the mix when he purchased a Black Lab puppy, Newman, whose sire and grand-sire were both national champions.

For Frank Plewa, who had two dogs in the field test, the NAHRA competition is a means of working with your dogs throughout the year. “Without NAHRA, my dogs would stop working when I put up my guns at the end of the hunting season. This is way to spend time with them and keep them sharp,” said Plewa, a wetlands specialist with the U.S Army Corps of Engineers who has been involved in NAHRA for 26 years. “I am beginning to cut back on work because the day job can really get in the way of training dogs.”

Dave Mellender, whose Yellow Lab Maxx just attended his first invitational, says a retriever is the best conservation tool available to the hunter. “Even in a field hunt, where many hunters think a retriever is not necessary, think about how many birds are wounded and run away. A hunter cannot run as fast a dog. And then he may be firing additional shots that could be saved with the use of a dog.”

Dick Ofstedal , one of three judges, visited the Eastern Shore from his home in Minnesota two months ago to preview the the competition sites, bringing his dogs to test the conditions.

“It’s an honor to be selected as a judge,” said Ofstedal. He talked about the bond between hunter and dog, which grows when the two spend so much time together. “It’s not you who picks the puppy to start this beautiful relationship. It’s the dog who looks you in the eye and picks you, and you should be forever grateful for the opportunity.”

Tony Carlo’s 8-year-old Black Lab, Teddy, a grand master hunter retriever champion, was eliminated after the first day when he did not honor another dog’s test.

“The shame of it is that Teddy scored perfect tens for his retrieves on his test, but he crept forward when the next retriever was working,” said Carlo, explaining each retriever must watch and honor the next competitor following his run without breaking from his position.

Although disappointed at Teddy’s elimination over what seems to be a minor infraction, Carlo said, “We attend the invitational for the opportunity to have the judges evaluate your dog and learn from the experience. We respect the judges and always accept their decision.”

Three women were among the handlers at this year’s invitational, including Sue Snow from Ontario, whose 10-year-old female Black Lab, Gee, is a Grand Master Hunter-V. “The NAHRA program has developed Gee into an all-around retriever who is as comfortable hunting waterfowl in the east as she is upland hunting in the west,” said Snow. “She has taken us on many adventures from Alabama to Alaska and many places in between.”

At the end of the week-long activities, Bull said the Eastern Shore had proven to be “as hospitable as any place we’ve been. The people have been just great. It’s obvious there’s a strong tradition of hunting and hunting dogs here,” added Bull

The NAHRA 35th Invitational was dedicated to one of its founding members, the late bird dog author Richard Wolters.

A dolphin that stranded itself on the beach at Sandbridge on Sunday night was euthanized by the Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Team.

Team members were sent to the beach to assess the animal’s condition and decided to put the dolphin down, spokesman Matthew Klepeisz said.

Sarah Rose, (left), with the Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Team begins a necropsy on a dead dolphin at the Virginia Aquarium Marine Animal Care Center, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Aug. 6, 2013. (Photo courtesy of L. Todd Spencer/ The Virginian-Pilot)

When the stranding team evaluated the dolphin, program coordinator Alexander Costidis said, it had rapid and shallow breathing and an irregular heart rate. Its eyes weren’t tracking activity properly. Costidis said the animal had skin lesions, suggesting an active poxvirus that pointed to some level of immune system compromise.

Matthew Kepeisz told the Mirror, “The dolphin was stranded in Sandbridge late Sunday evening. Our team received notification and headed out for assessment. After reviewing the animal’s condition and the conditions around it, our team made the decision that the most humane option was to sedate the animal. After conducting the necropsy on the stranded dolphin, our team determined that it had severe heart and brain lesions that almost certainly contributed to the stranding. It also had a heavy parasite load that may or may not have been related with some of the lesions.”

Rough surf conditions likely pushed the dolphin to shore, where refloating it was not considered a humane option since drowning or shark attacks were probable outcomes.