DATE: Thursday, March 27, 1997              TAG: 9703270421

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B12  EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                      LENGTH:   45 lines

CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: ***************************************************************** CORRECTIONS The Atlantic Ocean was mislabeled as the Chesapeake Bay on a map in Thursday's Hampton Roads section. The map accompanied a story about realigning a boat channel off the Eastern Shore. Correction published, Friday, March 28, 1997, p.a2 ***************************************************************** PROPOSED RULES WOULD PROTECT SHARKS IN BAY FROM FISHERMAN

State regulators are considering new rules to protect slow-maturing sharks from commercial fishing in the Chesapeake Bay.

The sharks use the bay as a nursery. Fishing has caused shark populations in the bay to decline up to 25 percent from 20 years ago, according to Jack Musick, a biologist with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

A proposal introduced Tuesday at a meeting of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission would ban commercial watermen from catching sharks under 58 inches long.

A second proposal would close state waters to shark fishing when the number of sharks taken legally in ocean waters has been reached.

A public hearing is scheduled April 22 on the proposals.

Virginia's management plan for sharks doesn't go far enough, Musick said.

``The plan has stopped the decline, but it has not allowed any rebuilding to occur,'' Musick told VMRC members.

Sharks are vulnerable to fishing because they are slow to reproduce. Other fish mature in a few years, then spew out fertilized eggs by the thousands. Sharks can take a decade or more to reach reproductive age, then have litters of only a few pups a year.

The number of sandbar sharks, the most common in the bay, will increase only about 5 percent a year under the best conditions, Musick said.

Virginia began regulating the commercial harvest of sharks in 1990 with a daily poundage limit and other restrictions. KEYWORDS: SHARK CHESAPEAKE BAY

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