Ospreys in the Chesapeake are in Trouble. Here’s How to Help Them

American Bird Conservancy campaign to save the ospreys in Chesapeake Bay 15 September 2026 Just over a year ago I wrote about the collapse of the osprey (Pandion haliaetus) population on the sea side of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Studies by the Center for Conservation Biology (CCB) at William & Mary found that the nesting population went from 83 nests in 1987 to just 9 in 2025, and the chicks in those 9 nests were starving. CCB predicted a similar collapse in Chesapeake Bay … and now it has come. This month the American Bird Conservancy reports that osprey nesting success in the Bay in 2026 was at its lowest level ever recorded — even lower than during the height of the DDT crisis in the 1960s. Osprey chicks are starving because their nutrition depends on a high energy and formerly abundant food, Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus), but menhaden are no longer available due to severe overfishing. We don’t eat menhaden but they are overfished in the Chesapeake for two reasons: (1) we…