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Way Downstream

In Chesapeake Bay, Russell Knapp, of Severn, knew something mighty was tugging on his line while angling on Labor Day near Point Lookout. “He took off like a locomotive,” said Knapp, thinking he had big old red drum on his line. He was close. When the fight ended, Knapp had a close relative of the drum on his line. It was an Atlantic croaker, but not just any croaker: Knapp’s prodigious catch weighed in at 6.52 pounds, breaking the 26-year-old Maryland record of 6.2 pounds. The Bay behemoth might also be a world all-tackle record for croaker, and scientists were trying to figure if Knapp’s fish has lived longer than the croaker’s usual eight years …

In Southern Anne Arundel County, horse manure could someday be generating electricity for homes. At the Sudley Landfill, both wood waste and horse manure will be studied as alternative energy sources. Anne Arundel chose the Sudley location because of its horse farms, where most of the county’s 700 resident horses live, each producing some 50 pounds of waste per day …

On the Eastern Shore, the Maryland Department of Agriculture played down the early September discovery in Queen Anne’s County of avian flu in fecal samples of wild ducks. State biologists described the bacteria as low in capacity to produce disease and said the particular H5N1 strain had been seen before in the U.S. Nonetheless, the state advised poultry farmers and bird-hunters to take special precautions ...

In Virginia, a Texas company not only is damaging fishing in the Chesapeake by harvesting millions of pounds of menhaden for fish oil, it’s also polluting a creek near the Bay with cyanide. Omega Protein was fined $16,500 last week by the State Water Control Board for discharges at its Reedville processing plant near the Maryland border …

Our Creature Feature comes from Chesapeake Bay, where an extremely rare Kemp’s ridley sea turtle is prowling once more after being nursed back to health by the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Special care was taken because there are believed to be only 6,000 Kemp ridleys left in the world.

The turtle, named Geddy, found on Hooper’s Island in June with a fishhook in its throat, was released September 8 after rehabbing in the Aquarium’s hospital pool. Geddy left in good health, with a satellite tag taped to its back, so its movements can be monitored. See for yourself at www.aqua.org.