VIMS

Fisheries: Top Stories

VIMS study shows “dead zone” impacts Bay fishes

Ten-year study provides the first quantitative evidence on a bay-wide scale that oxygen-poor waters impact the distribution and abundance of fishes that live and feed near the Bay bottom.

VIMS receives grants to study key Chesapeake Bay species

Eleven research teams from VIMS have received funding from NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Office to study species that play an important role in the Bay’s ecology, commercial fisheries, and recreational angling.

Blue crab population booms

VIMS winter dredge survey shows a 60% increase in Chesapeake Bay's blue crabs since last year, reaching the highest level measured since 1997.

Ghost pot program a "win-win"

Out-of-work commercial watermen pulled up more than 9,000 derelict "ghost pots" from Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries during the second year of Virginia's landmark Marine Debris Removal Program.

VIMS trains interns in oyster aquaculture

VIMS begins a new program to train the skilled workers needed to advance Chesapeake Bay’s rapidly growing oyster-farming industry.

Researchers show that three fish families are one

An international team of scientists including VIMS Asst. Professor Tracey Sutton resolves a long-standing biological puzzle by showing that a group of deep-sea fishes previously classified into 3 separate families are actually the larvae, males, and females of a single family—the whalefishes.

Dickhut puts pollutants to good use

VIMS Professor Rebecca Dichkhut is using persistent organic pollutants to help measure the degree of mixing between Mediterranean and western Atlantic stocks of bluefin tuna.

Graves Wins Award

The International Game Fish Association honors Prof. John Graves with its individual Conservation Award for his groundbreaking research and management efforts in regards to billfish and tuna.

Rare crab may hold genetic secrets

Researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science are holding an extremely rare type of crab that was pulled from the Chesapeake Bay last month by watermen David Johnson and Robert Watson of Deltaville.

VIMS researchers investigate fish kill

Researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science continue to investigate last week's fish-kill event, in which observers reported hundreds of dead and dying adult menhaden in several Peninsula waterways. The researchers have so far discovered no conclusive evidence as to the cause of this relatively small event.