On the Bay

All winter long, four of Judy Plaskowitz’s students—seniors at South Carroll High School in Sykesville, Maryland—have tended two enormous tanks behind the school’s Career and Technology Building, hoping the yellow perch (Perca flavescens) inside could successfully over-winter

It’s 9 a.m. in Baltimore, I’ve had too much coffee, and I’m nervous. I walk up to the podium, and with encouraging nods from my colleagues, give a brief—and I mean brief—introductory spiel about a project I’ve spent the better part of a year working on. I look around, seeing largely unfamiliar faces from local government offices, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions.

Oysters living within the cozy confines of a hatchery here in Maryland wouldn’t ordinarily get in the mood on Valentine’s Day. It’s cold outside, and bivalves like summer loving.

Last fall we became lead partners with University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), in a multi-state consortium to receive a $1.2 million grant to study how to optimally grow Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in land-based aquaculture systems.

There used to be a photo hanging at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Horn Point Oyster Hatchery. The image shows four women who worked in the hatchery in the 2000s standing in front of a large truck emblazoned with the words: Powered by Estrogen.