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- Purple marsh crabs are significantly disrupting carbon cycling in salt marshes along the East Coast of the U.S., according to a study led by Batten School & VIMS scientists.
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- The R. Todd Stravitz Scholars Program will provide full tuition support for students pursuing the new bachelor’s degree in coastal & marine sciences at the Batten School & VIMS.
  
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- National TRAP Program funds large-scale cleanup of discarded fishing gear, first round of subawards totaling more than $1.4M supports 11 projects focused on removing derelict fishing gear from coastal waters in nine U.S. states and Palau.
  
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- As an expression of parental pride in their daughter, Taylor Spencer ‘83 and Martha Spencer recently established an undergraduate field research endowment at the Batten School & VIMS.
  
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Bluefish

Pomatomus saltatrix

Information and species illustrations courtesy of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Species Information
Size Maximum to 110 cm; commonly to 60 cm. The IGFA all-tackle gamefish record is 14.40 kg for a fish caught in North Carolina in 1972.
Diagnostic characters
Habitat, biology, and fisheries Usually found in coastal temperate and subtropical waters. A powerful, swift fish, the young hunting in schools, the adults in loose groups. Voracious visual feeders renowned for their appetites, schools of actively feeding bluefish have attacked bathers. Caught mainly with gill nets, lines, and purse seines; commonly taken on hook-and-line by sports fishermen in the USA. FAO statistics report landings ranging from 756 to 1 458 t from 1995 to 1999. Landings totaled 1.80M t globally from 1950 to 2024. Marketed mostly fresh but also makes an excellent smoked product.
Distribution Coastal temperate and subtropical waters of the world except absent from the eastern Pacific and the Indo-West Pacific north of the equator. In the western Atlantic known from Bermuda, the Atlantic coast of North America (Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico) and South America (Colombia to Argentina) but absent from the Bahamas,West Indies (except for the northern coast of Cuba), and Caribbean coast of Central America.
Citations Carpenter, K.E. (ed) The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 1: Introduction, molluscs, crustaceans, hagfishes, sharks, batoid fishes, and chimaeras. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. Rome, FAO. 2002. pp. 1-600. Carpenter, K.E. (ed) The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 2: Bony fishes part 1 (Acipenseridae to Grammatidae). FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. Rome, FAO. 2002. pp. 601-1374. Carpenter, K.E. (ed) The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic. Volume 3: Bony fishes part 2 (Opistognathidae to Molidae), sea turtles and marine mammals. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5. Rome, FAO. 2002. pp. 1375-2127.