Ospreys along the Jersey Shore are facing a severe food crisis, with this year shaping up worse than last year’s already-record-bad season.
Experts point to a scarcity of Atlantic menhaden (bunker), a key food source for ospreys, though there’s no clear explanation yet for the decline.
Watch Ted Greenberg NBC 10 report.
At Stockton University — whose mascot is the osprey — a student found a young bird that was emaciated and too weak to fly; it was captured but died en route to a rehab facility.
Stockton students monitored over two dozen osprey nests around Great Bay and the Mullica River and found that 85% of chicks didn’t survive, many found “just skin and bones.”
Similar starvation patterns have been documented around Barnegat Bay by Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey, part of a broader trend up and down the East Coast.
Fisheries managers are now considering cutting the commercial menhaden catch cap in Chesapeake Bay by up to 50% and spreading harvesting more evenly through the year, with a public comment period open until October 9.
The die-offs are especially troubling because they come right after ospreys were removed from New Jersey’s endangered species list.
Osprey Mortality Studied by Stockton University.
Why no mention of Cooke Seafood, and Ocean Harvesters, the company taking over 350 million pounds out of the Chesapeake and Atlantic?