Thanks to funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, we’ve been working on a pilot project that will develop methods for a future study of the sanctuary’s impact on the public fishery. Our study will focus on methods for monitoring disease resistance, looking at the difference between the fish communities in the sanctuary and public fisher, and modeling larvae transport.
This summer, we focused on disease resistance and fish communities. We partnered with the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Chesapeake Biological Laboratory to place fish traps on the five-acre restoration site and on some public fishery bars. We also partnered with Dr. Pat Santos from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and her students to measure the prevalence of Dermo, a parasitic oyster disease. We look forward to sharing the results later this summer!
