
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 18, 1991                   TAG: 9103180187
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RESCUE                                LENGTH: Short

SCIENTISTS STUDYING DROP IN SHAD CATCH

Marine scientists are attaching transmitters to shad off Rudee Inlet to see why landings of the fine-boned fish have dropped severely over the past few years.

The catch has dropped from a million or more pounds a year through much of the 1970s to less than 439,000 pounds last year, the lowest catch ever recorded.

The state established a shad season and regulated net size for the first time this year, with the goal of stabilizing or slightly reducing the catch while studies are conducted.

Watermen fear the result of the regulations on shad catches could be another round of restrictions on shad catches and the complete closing of the ocean shad fishery.

Scientific studies often blame the decrease in shad on pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, and the construction of dams years ago that block shad from spawning grounds upstream.

by CNB