Sea Grass Loss

As the amount of algae in the Bay has exploded in recent years, it has dramatically reduced the clarity of the water.  Because sunlight cannot reach the grasses in foggy water, the underwater grasses which need sunlight to survive are dying.

Beds of eelgrass, the predominant grass in the saltier southern Bay, have shrunk by more than half in the last 30 years.  And over the last century, hundreds of thousands of acres of bay grasses of all kinds have disappeared.

In addition to contributing oxygen to the Bay, bay grasses serve as a nursery for crabs and fish.   Without grasses to hide within, crabs are extremely vulnerable to predators every time they molt.

In 2003, the Chesapeake Bay Program adopted a goal to restore 185,000 acres of bay grasses by 2010.  Unfortunately, we are falling far short of meeting this goal.  In 2007, underwater grasses were estimated to cover only about 65,000 acres of the Bay, 35% of the goal.