Imagine walking down to the shore of the Chesapeake Bay one morning and seeing a distressing sight: dead fish floating in the water as far as you can see. You get out your binoculars and, finding you can see one mile in all directions over the water, start counting. It takes quite a while, but when you are done you are astounded: 293,000 fish! And these are not small fish. You pick one up and weigh it - half a pound. Not small at all. How could this happen? Is your part of the Bay dying?

You call a neighbor 5 miles away who also lives near the Bay and ask him what he sees. A little later he calls back. He sees the same thing. Furthermore, he has called his neighbors and they are all seeing the same thing. Later you learn that this fish kill is not just localized to your extremely small part of the Bay, but afflicts the entire Chesapeake Bay. The entire Chesapeake Bay, all 4,470 square miles of it, is completely covered with dead Atlantic Menhaden, spaced an average of 4 yards apart in all directions!

The nightmare I just described is not fiction. It happens every year as a result one one single human activity: industrial purse seine fishing targeting Atlantic Menhaden. I suspect that most people cannot conceive of any fishing technique that would allow a modest number of boats (and planes) to capture that many fish in only a year over a body of water as large as the Chesapeake Bay. This enormous number is the consequence of the perfect storm of three factors: 1) the unfortunate habit of Atlantic Menhaden to gather in a small number of compact "pods"; 2) the fishing technique known as purse seine capture whereby a small number of boats can completely surround a pod and capture virtually the entire pod at once. (This works well as long as you don't mind also killing the other fish that are feeding on the Menhaden at the time ("bycatch"), and as long as you don't mind damaging the bottom of the Bay with your nets); and 3) Airplane "spotters" that can easily spot any pods that you may have missed anywhere in the Bay, and send your boats there to capture them too. Given the above perfect storm of factors, it is not difficult to imagine a small fleet of ships and planes capable of significantly reducing the Atlantic Menhaden population in the Chesapeake Bay. Which is precisely what is happening

The Atlantic menhaden has been called "the most important fish in the sea" and the Chesapeake Bay is certainly the most valuable estuary in the United states. We can no longer allow this anachronism of industrial purse seine fishing to destroy this most important fish and this most valuable estuary.

I support this petition with all my heart.

Dr. Steven T. Zalesak

Moseley, VA