The University of Maryland Eastern Shore has a Striped Bass bioenergetics study underway this year to look at forage demand. This model should be adaptable for addressing the effect of temperature at differing levels of feeding success on fish condition. It is possible that the amount of habitat with suitable temperature-DO for large Striped Bass has diminished or the population has expanded beyond what is available. We examined trends of major forage species relative abundance in our Juvenile Striped Bass Seining Survey and indices of the two major Striped Bass prey, Atlantic menhaden and bay anchovies, are at the lowest levels ever observed. Atlantic silverside and Spot abundance is also low.
White perch are the only prey species whose abundance has increased in recent years.
These data support a hypothesis of depleted forage abundance, but the role of Striped Bass in this depletion is unclear. Concerns The field sampling for 1997 coincided with the Striped Bass stock assessment group's fall tagging survey which takes place during the fall Striped Bass season in the Chesapeake Bay. Fish were collected from pound nets located at Tall Timbers in the Potomac River, the main Bay north of Point Lookout, Kent Island, and an area near Rock Hall. To date a total of 55 fish have been collected and delivered to Maryland Department of Agriculture's Animal Health Laboratory in College Park, Maryland. Streptococcus and Mycobacterium were observed in several of the internal organs.