Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The bounty of Atlantic cod first lured Europeans across the Atlantic and for five centuries sustained a commercial
fishery and fishing culture.
Several Indian tribes recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia still live along the river valleys and
shores of the bay. As well there are Indian people in southern Maryland, living without a reservation, and oth-
ers on the Maryland Eastern Shore. Descendants of the Powhatan started shad hatcheries in the early 20th cen-
tury, and today modern hatchery laboratories on both the Pamunkey and Mattaponi reservations produce mil-
lions of young fish annually. This has led to a resurgence of an important food and sport fish decimated by four
hundred years of pollution and damming of the bay's rivers.
