Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs and Watermen Discussion

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Part 1.
Chapter 1 and 2.
Read the attached article (at the end of this document)concerning the Chesapeake Bay. Use information from that article to answer questions 1-3.
1. Sustainability is the use of resources in such a way that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. What might sustainable development look like in the Chesapeake Bay?
2. Our text describes various “˜services’ provided by natural systems (list I Chapter 3). Give specific examples of several ecosystem services provided by the Chesapeake Bay. Name the type of service and then state the example.
3. There are three common environmental attitudes towards the environment that are identified in the text. Identify a stakeholder (someone with a particular interest in a topic or issue) in the article that fits each of the environmental attitudes identified in the text.
Chapter 4.
4. State the first and second laws of thermodynamics.Describe how the laws of thermodynamics relate to environmental issues or problems.
5. Answer these questions about atoms:
a. What happens to atoms during a chemical reaction? What holds these atoms together?
b. Describe how energy is associated with chemical reactions.
6. Describe how solids, liquids and gases differ from one another at the molecular level.
7. Are all kinds of energy equal in their capacity to bring about changes? Why or why not?
Part 2 – In Depth Response
Select one of the prompts below to answer in more detail. You must provide an appropriately cited source (using APA format)to help with your response. One or two paragraphs should suffice.
A. The article below is over 10 years old. What are the current social and political factors surrounding the Chesapeake Bay that may impact the environment? Briefly discuss. Hint: Funding for the Chesapeake Bay Program has recently been cut dramatically.
B. Identify and briefly describe an environmental condition in the Chesapeake Bay region that is affecting people’s health.
C. Globalization is a concept described in the text. Is globalization apparent in the Chesapeake Bay region (Maryland, Delaware, Virginia)? Identify and describe an issue that is related to globalization. Hint: possibilities include exotic species, immigration, labor force and the crabbing industry, foreign trade, etc.
Can We Save Both Blue Crabs and Watermen?
Jennifer M. Rhode
Georgia College and State University
Chesapeake Bay lies in the mid-Atlantic region of the East Coast of the United States, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. In 2001, commercial watermen harvested over 270million kilograms (600 million pounds) of Chesapeake Bay seafood; blue crabs made up about 10 percent of this harvest. At its peak, the Chesapeake Bay blue crab seafood fishery was worth more than $150 million per year. Since the mid-1990s, however, the bay’s crab population has dropped precipitously and now hovers around its all-time recorded low.
In response to alarming declines in crab abundance, the Bi-State Blue Crab Advisory Committee, a group of scientists and managers from Maryland and Virginia, recommended a 15 percent reduction in baywide harvest between 2001 and 2003. Implementation has been slow, and the future of this species, the fishery, and the watermen who harvest crabs for a living remains in limbo.
Increased fishing pressure has contributed to the decline in blue crab populations. Chesapeake Bay oysters are too scarce to produce a commercially viable yield, so watermen who historically fished both oysters and crabs now focus their efforts exclusively on crabs. Technological improvements have made commercial crab harvesting more efficient, increasing the rate of crab capture. Crabbing has also become a more popular pastime among the burgeoning population of Chesapeake Bay’s watershed.
Other sources of crab mortality have also reduced the number of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs. First, the numbers of predators have increased. Both Maryland and Virginia imposed a total moratorium on striped bass fishing from the mid-1980s until 1989, allowing fish populations to increase. Since crabs compose up to 50 percent of the striped bass diet, increasing numbers of these voracious predators might be expected to cause a concomitant decrease in blue crab numbers. Second, crabs have become more vulnerable to predators. Juvenile blue crabs rely on seagrass beds for camouflage to protect them from predation, but increased nutrient pollution of Chesapeake Bay caused mass die-offs of seagrasses in the 1960s and 1970s. Although these plant populations have begun to recover, seagrasses now cover less than 3 perce