In 1966 Congress passed the National Sea Grant College Program Act to promote marine research, education, and extension services in institutions along the nation's ocean and Great Lakes coasts. In Maryland a Sea Grant Program -- a partnership among federal and state governments, universities, and industries -- began in 1977, and in 1982 the University of Maryland was named the nation's seventeenth Sea Grant College. The Maryland Sea Grant College focuses its efforts on the Chesapeake Bay, with emphasis on the marine concerns of fisheries, seafood technology, and environmental quality. A description of the Chesapeake's waterman, this book details fishing for crabs, oysters, soft clams, hard clams, eels, cat-fish, menhaden, and other fish. Each chapter describes a day with a waterman, capturing the personality of the boat's crew as well as the techniques they use to catch their prey. Bay artist Neil Harpe has produced original lithographs for the book, and the combination of words and pictures helps to capture a slice of time in the lives of the watermen. The full-color cover reproduces an original lithograph by Neil Harpe of two skipjacks dredging the oyster beds of Tangier Sound.

The USA touts Chesapeake Bay as its premier environmental restoration programme, yet the Bay remains in poor condition.

Life in the Chesapeake Bay is the most important book ever published on America's largest estuary. Since publication of the first edition in 1984, tens of thousands of naturalists, boaters, fishermen, and conservationists have relied on the book's descriptions of the Bay's plants, animals, and diverse habitats. Superbly illustrated and clearly written, this acclaimed guide describes hundreds of plants and animals and their habitats, from diamondback terrapins to blue crabs to hornshell snails. Now in its third edition, the book has been updated with a new gallery of thirty-nine color photographs and dozens of new species descriptions and illustrations. The new edition retains the charm of an engaging classic while adding a decade of new research. This classic guide to the plants and animals of the Chesapeake Bay will appeal to a variety of readers—year-round residents and summer vacationers, professional biologists and amateur scientists, conservationists and sportsmen.

Photographer Jay Fleming turned his attention to Smith and Tangier Islands - the Chesapeake Bay's last inhabited 'water-locked' islands. Fleming has made countless trips to the islands to document the unique way of life and environment that have been shaped by isolation and the waters of the Chesapeake. This collection of photographs will fill the pages of Fleming's second book, Island Life. This body work comes at an important time for the islands, as their populations continue to decline and the unrelenting forces of the bay threaten the working working waterfronts that have sustained the communities for centuries. Fleming hopes that his photography will immerse readers in the Island Life and capture a crucial moment in time for the Chesapeake's most unique communities.

For consumers of all income levels, an extensive guide to participating in the local food movement in the Chesapeake region. There was a time when most food was local. Exotic foods like olives, spices, and chocolate shipped in from other parts of the world were considered luxuries. Now, most food that Americans eat is shipped from elsewhere, and many consider eating local to be a luxury. Renee Brooks Catacalos is here to remind us that eating local is easier?and more rewarding?than we may think. There is an abundance of food all around us, found all over the Chesapeake region. In The Chesapeake Table, Catacalos examines the powerful effect of eating local in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC. Hooked on the local food movement from its early days, Catacalos opens the book by revisiting a personal challenge to buy, prepare, and eat only food grown within a 150-mile radius of her home near Washington, DC. From her in-depth study of food systems in the region, Catacalos offers practical advice for adopting a locavore diet and getting involved in various entry points to food pathways, from your local farmers market to community-supported agriculture (CSA). She also includes recipes that show how to make more environmentally conscious food choices. Introducing readers to the vast edible resources of the Chesapeake region, Catacalos focuses on the challenges of environmental and economic sustainability, equity and diversity in the farming and food professions, and access and inclusion for local consumers of all income levels, ethnicities, and geographies. Touching on everything from farm-based breweries and distilleries to urban hoop house farms to grass-fed beef, The Chesapeake Table celebrates the people working hard to put great local food on our plates.

Water's Way communicates the beauty and essence of the Chesapeake Bay through photogaphy and prose. Those who know and love the Chesapeake will find the bay they treasure on the pages of Water's Way: Life along the Chesapeake. The story of one of North America's most fascinating regions unfolds through the sensitive photographs and prose of two men who have studied the Chesapeake all their lives. Photographer David W. Harp and writer Tom Horton vividly portray how, as Horton writes, "the edges where land and water meet charm us all, from watermen to watercolorists and beachcombers to duck hunters." Water's Way will guide you to "those rare, hidden nooks of the bay country where nature still appears as glorious and untrammeled as it did a thousand years ago." It will also take you to less hidden, but equally intriguing sites within the Chesapeake's reach as Harp and Horton depict the worlds of both nature and humans. An intimate knowledge of and an unwavering reverence for the bay pervade Water's Way. Harp and Horton are as attuned to the romance that still clings to the Chesapeake as they are to the realities that inspire and threaten it. In a time when the region faces tremendous changes and challenges, Water's Way is neither strident nor sentimental. Rather, it is suffused with the fundamental respect for the bay which Harp and Horton see as key to its survival.