"Sometimes it is best to stop analyzing the bay and just listen
to what its creatures have to tell us. . . . If you have ever
hooked a rockfish or a shad on a line and felt it tug for its
freedom, or tried to pry apart an oyster's shells, or attempted
to pick up a feisty jimmy (male) crab, then you know -- the bay
vigorously, vitally, desperately wants to live. Given half a
chance to survive, its inhabitants will not be shy grabbing it."
"Turning the Tide" Learning to listen to what Chesapeake Bay is
telling us is a difficult lesson. So often humans -- the bay's
enemy and now its only hope for survival -- hears the cries for
help from individual species but seems deaf to the collective
groan of the system as it struggles to survive. We see the
oyster population diminish to 1 percent of its original level
and worry about the loss of the skipjack sailing fleet and the
industry that supports it. But we often don't see as clearly the
loss of their crucial role in filtering the bay's waters of
pollutants. The bay