Word: watermen
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...almost overwhelming natural abundance. Geese, black ducks, mallard, teal and widgeon have darkened the skies over the bay and fattened themselves in its marshes. Striped bass, shad and herring spawn in its shallow bays. Oysters, clams and the succulent Atlantic blue crab provide the bay's hardy watermen with a livelihood and gourmets with seafood delights...
...this bounty and the bay itself are now threatened. Watermen have been saying for years that the Chesapeake is dying. Now others are confirming their complaint. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, after making a $28 million six-year study, concluded in 1983 that the Chesapeake is clearly an ecosystem in decline. Says Maryland Governor Harry Hughes: "Time is running out for the Chesapeake. If we do not take action to save the bay, there may be no point in taking it tomorrow; it may be too late...
...that declining catches are forcing him and his fellow fishermen out of business. As Tilghman Islander William Roulette points out, "We all must work part-time ashore." The Chesapeake fleet of skipjacks, sail-driven oyster dredges, has dropped from more than 100 boats to 30; the number of working watermen has shrunk from 7,500 in the '50s to about...
...there is a new and increasingly controversial way of bringing up the shellfish. Tucker Brown, 45, and Roy Sprague, 33, along with a growing number of other watermen, harvest oysters in person-by diving for them. While Brown mans the helm of his 46-ft. work boat Frisky, Sprague plunges beneath the surface of the bay and sends the oysters topside in a wire basket. "It ain't easy," says the soft-spoken Sprague. "But it sure beats long-tonging...
Brown and Sprague acknowledge that their harvests are bigger than the average tongman's. But the fact is that none of the watermen are getting huge hauls these days. Nitrogen, carried into the bay by runoff from neighboring farm lands, has lowered the Chesapeake's oxygen level. The primary victims are the oysters, whose numbers have been declining in recent years. The secondary victims are watermen like Brown, whose family has been working the water for three generations, and Sprague, a Californian who was sent to Maryland as a serviceman and liked it so well that he stayed...