A fund to help support research efforts on finding out more about the effects of Mycobacteriosis on Striped Bass and Striped Bass survival.
Attention All Striped Bass Anglers:
My name is Captain Jim White. I am a Board member of Stripers Forever and I have been involved in striped bass management and conservation efforts for most of my adult life. I was featured in Dick Russell's "Striper Wars" book and I helped write the first bill that went to Congress in 1984 from Congresswomen's Claudine Schneider office on saving the striped bass. House Bill HR-4884 was a bill written to save the striped bass from extinction and was presented to the 98th Congress of the United States. From that bill came the 28-inch limit and the ending of commercial fishing operations in the Chesapeake Bay region, among others. I have also written extensively on striped bass and striped bass conservation for more than 30-years.
We have just formed a Committee through Stripers Forever, with author Ed Mitchell as its chairman, myself and Dean Clark on that committee at the present time.
It is our hope to raise funds to help fund a research project that will be dedicated to finding out more about Mycobacteriosis and it's effects on the striped bass population in the Chesapeake Bay system. "Myco" as it is called, is without much doubt, the single biggest threat to the survival of striped bass that we have today. More than 70-percent of the fish living in the bay estuary is infected with this disease.
Current research estimates are that almost all will die or surcome to the disease at some point. The disease has gone from a natural state where Myco occurs naturally within the environment to a stage of having morphed four or five times into a totally different and unique strain of this bacteria. A LOT MORE STUDY AND RESEARCH HAS TO BE DONE TO DETERMINE ITS EFFECTS ON NOT ONLY THE STOCK BUT HOW IT WILL IMPACT HUMANS AS WELL. Only with our help of funding will this ever be possible. And the time to act is now.
I am offering and giving my web site a place to help raise funds
Stripers Forever
Attn. VIMS Fund P O Box 2781
SP, ME 04116.
as well as inform the striped bass anglers of how this disease is progressing and its effects on the striped bass population.
TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS can be made to the address above for Stripers Forever.
We will keep EVERYONE informed on all the current information on Mycobacteriosis and how it is progressing and what the current research is showing as that information becomes available.
I have personally written and published many articles on this topic over the last 14 years. This is NOT A NEW PROBLEM, only one that is now being addressed seriously. The very future of our striped bass fishery stems on finding an answer to this disease. It is equally as important as water quality in the Chesapeake Bay system, forage fish problems, and over fishing by both commercial and recreational anglers.
As anglers, we have the opportunity to make this Fund Raising Event just as important as the legislation to save the striped bass was 25-years ago. Your, our, striped bass need our help. Please consider making a Tax Deductible contribution today.
Thank you all. Captain Jim White
Be sure to watch this web site for further information on this very important cause. The striped bass need your help.
