Bay & Beyond

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The Chesapeake Bay remains central to the mission of the Batten School & VIMS, but it’s only one piece of a much larger story. Bay & Beyond is a blog that brings together clear, reliable insights across a breadth of subject matters— from persistent regional challenges to rapidly emerging global issues — and invites you to go deeper and discover the people, the science, and the innovations that make us a leading institution for coastal & marine science education, research and advisory services.

New On The Blog

  • VIMS Invertebrate Collections Manager Jennifer Dreyer pulls a rapa whelk specimen out of its container.

    Inside the VIMS Invertebrate Collection

    The VIMS Invertebrate Collection is a library of preserved invertebrates from Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay, the North Atlantic, and the world beyond.  We sat down for an interview with collection manager Jennifer Dreyer to talk about the collection's history, what it takes to preserve thousands of specimens, and why natural history collections matter more than ever in a changing climate.
  • A drone photo of Cedar Island from January 2026 with the approximate location of the project site outlined.

    Cedar Island Resilience Project

    The Cedar Island Resilience Project is a proposed coastal restoration effort designed to strengthen the long-term stability of Cedar Island while protecting surrounding ecosystems and nearby communities.
  • York River Bloom Dead Zone Social

    Dead Zones FAQ

    Dead zones are areas of a waterbody with low-oxygen (hypoxic) conditions unsuitable for most marine life. The Batten School & VIMS publish an annual Dead Zone report card that summarizes dissolved oxygen concentrations throughout the Bay.
  • A school of menhaden feeding. Photo Credit: Alynda Miller

    Atlantic Menhaden

    Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) are small (maximum length = 15 inches) schooling fish related to herring, shad and sardines. The species inhabits near-shore waters along the Atlantic seaboard from Nova Scotia southward to central Florida, making them a valuable aspect of North American commercial and recreational fisheries as well as coastal ecotourism industries. 

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Osprey Cam

Watch real-time images of an osprey family during their annual nesting and breeding season on the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. The images come from a nesting platform in the waters of the York River immediately in front of the Batten School & VIMS campus in Gloucester Point, Virginia. The nest site protects the resident ospreys from predators and gives them ready access to nearby fishing grounds. Archived videos of the osprey are available on our YouTube channel

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Looking for the old Bay Info pages?

Don't worry, they didn't go far! While our new Bay & Beyond Blog focuses on our latest content, you can find all of our original Bay Info articles and resources below.