Declining rockfish

Christine Condon’s article on the state of the bay report pointed out the plight of the Chesapeake Bay rockfish (The Capital, Jan. 6). Populations of Maryland’s iconic fish are way down, below levels of sustainability.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has called for higher catch limitations and seasonal adjustments in those limits, as well as protection of menhaden, a major food source. While those measures may be necessary to prevent the complete collapse of rockfish populations in the near-term, they are insufficient to stop an inevitable loss of catastrophic magnitude.

Climate change and the consequent rise of winter water temperatures in the bay threaten to kill off the rockfish permanently. Rockfish cannot exist if their larvae — the “babies” — have no nursery food. They starve when their food source, a crustacean native to the bay’s watershed, emerges too early in the spring to match their own spawning calendar.

Warming winter temperatures in the bay make this mismatch more frequent. The scheduling problem has been known for at least a decade. Barring rapid slowdown of the bay’s warming trends in the next 10 to 20 years, there may be few if any adult rockfish available even for the most avid sport fisherman, to say nothing of the bay’s commercial fishing fleet.

Addressing climate change will mean extra costs in the short run and economic disruption to some industries. Strong climate change policies would help prevent a complete collapse of the rockfish population. Maryland’s fishing industry should be leading the charge.

JUDITH WAGNER Odenton