Explosion of Orange, Hairball-like Algae in Virginia Waters

(To hear a radio version of this story, click here.)

TANGIER ISLAND, VA -- An explosion of feathery, orange, hairball-like blobs of algae this summer is frustrating crabbers and  blanketing underwater grass beds in the southern Chesapeake Bay.

Watermen on Tangier Island report their crab harvesting grounds have been smothered with  “red moss,” and complain they’ve never seen anything like it.

“It’s been around all summer -- and I mean loads of it, and it’s still growing,” said James “Ooker” Eskridge (pictured at right), mayor of Tangier and a commercial waterman for three decades.  “The red moss gets so bad, you can’t work at all. You just have to leave the area.”

Some scientists say the menace is not moss at all, but a large multicellular algae, perhaps a species called Spyridia, which is native to the Chesapeake Bay. Others have speculated it could be a variety native to Asia called Gracilaria vermiculophylla. Researchers believe this latter macroalgae (big algae) probably hitchhiked from the Pacific Ocean to the U.S. in a ship’s ballast water.

Whatever its origin, the "red moss" now appears to be multiplying in the Chesapeake Bay because of nutrient pollution -- providing a graphic example of why stronger controls are needed on nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from sewage plants, suburban lawns, septic tanks, farms and other sources, researchers suggest.

Officials at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources said on Aug. 27 that they would analyze a sample of the "red moss" taken near Tangier Island.

On Sept. 16, Catherine Wazniak, Program Chief of Integrated Assessment at the state agency, reported back to Bay Daily that the algae so common around Tangier island was likely Spyridia, a species native to the Chesapeake Bay. 

Dr. Karen McGlathery, professor in the department of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, looked at a photo of the algae and told Bay Daily that she suspects that it's an Asian species, Gracilaria, which has invaded the Atlantic coastal bays of Virginia’s eastern shore. 

Michael D. Naylor, assistant director of the fisheries service at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said in an email that he’s seen lots of what watermen call “red moss” in the southern Chesapeake Bay and in the Atlantic coastal bays.

Whatever it was, the watermen on Tangier Island found lots of it this summer.

“Imagine a carpet – solid red. That’s what it looks like, and how much water it holds, too. As much as a carpet,” said Dan Dise (left), president of the Tangier Waterman’s Association.

Dise said watermen saw a few small spots of the algae in past years, but this year the “moss” just took over.

“I’ve never in my life seen this much, from one end of the sound to the other,” Dise said, shaking his head while unloading soft crabs beside his shack atop stilts in Tangier Harbor.  “It breaks my heart, and breaks my back.”

Veteran waterman Donald Thorne (at left in photo) took me out on the water as he crabbed near the island.  He hauled up a crab “scrape,” a metal rectangle holding a net, and showed how much heavier the nets become when they are filled with the sponge-like yuck.  He held up a handful of the fluffy stuff.

“It’s everywhere, everywhere. It’s all over the crabbing grounds.  Where it comes from, I don’t know,” Thorne said, squeezing the mass and then tossing it back into the Bay with obvious disgust. 

“We aren’t catching no crabs.  Crabs won’t go into it. And it makes the work so heavy, it kills us," Thorne said.

(Photos by Tom Pelton)

Comments

[Comment on CBF Facebook Page]

OMG! Tribbles!

[Comment on CBF Facebook Page]

You can see it from the air actually. I fly into BWI about twice a week and you can actually see the red/orange masses of stuff in the water.

[Comment on CBF Facebook Page]

As if a pound of poop per bird per day isn't enough, 10,000,000,000 Canada Geese are now coughing up hairballs. What next for the Bay?

[Comment on CBF Facebook Page]

I hesitated and decided not to click the "Like" link on this one. A serious problem, no doubt, with an astronomically funny Dave Barry -esque headline.