October 22, 2024 — The number of juvenile striped bass in Virginia waters is down for the second straight year, a concerning development, researchers say.
The 2024 survey of the juvenile numbers was released last week by William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and its Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences.
They say the 2024 mean value of 3.43 stripers per seine haul (in which a long net is used to trap fish) is significantly lower than the historic average of 7.77 fish (the survey’s been conducted annually since 1967).