Video Spotlights

Smithville sits on the edge of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A century ago, Smithville had more than 100 residents; today it has four. Many factors led to the near abandonment of this historic town. It is now a stop on the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Tour. Canneries closed, jobs disappeared, opportunities elsewhere beckoned. But central to the town’s demise is the marsh that’s encroaching on the town’s church and its cemetery, key links to its past.

Video by Michael W. Fincham

A native of New England, Walter Boynton began his science career as a summertime assistant at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, Maryland. Over the next 40+ years he became a leading marine researcher and advocate for science-based approaches to restoring Chesapeake Bay, the country's largest estuary. For his work he was awarded the Mathias Medal by the Maryland Sea Grant Program, an honor named for former Senator Charles Mac Mathias, known as "the father of the Chesapeake Bay Program." The medal is jointly sponsored by Maryland Sea Grant, Virginia Sea Grant and the Chesapeake Research Consortium.

Video by Michael W. Fincham

Art Daniels is an oysterman and crabber from Deal Island, MD who was recruited with wife to perform religious songs in many churches along Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Video by Michael W. Fincham

The decline of the Chesapeake Bay oyster fishery created a diaspora for many for many African Americans who grew up attending Friendship Methodist Church in Wetipquin, Maryland, a small, isolated community near the Nanticoke River on Maryland\'s Eastern Shore. Most young people left their hometown to find work, but many return every November to reconnect with family and friends in an annual Back Home Sunday service.

Video by Michael W. Fincham

In 1991 oceanographer Bill Boicourt launched a pioneering effort to use moored buoys for gathering science data about changing conditions in Chesapeake Bay.

Video by Michael W. Fincham

Winter ice is a recurring threat to science buoys in the Chesapeake Bay. When oceanographer Bill Boicourt set up the first network of buoys in the estuary, he had to retrieve northern and mid-bay buoys before the ice arrived each year — or run rescue missions in the spring to haul out ice-damaged buoys.

Video by Michael W. Fincham

This video shows deep-sea corals, fish, methane seeps, interviews with scientists, and other scenes from recent scientific expeditions to the underwater canyons.

YouTube video produced by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Geological Survey.

An Atlantic deep-sea red crab in Norfolk Canyon attempts to grab a meal. The video was shot by a remotely operated underwater vehicle launched by NOAA's Okeanos Explorer research vessel in 2014.

YouTube video produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In this YouTube video, fishermen haul in and process deep-sea red crabs aboard the F/V Benthic Mariner, part of the Atlantic Red Crab Company's fleet.

In 1988 Bernie Fowler began his annual Patuxent River Wade-In on the second Sunday in June, hoping to draw attention to the cause of cleaning up the river he'd grown up on and worked on and lived on for so much of his life. The early crowds were small, perhaps two dozen showed up for his third Wade-In back in 1990 Wade-In. Present from the start was Tom Wisner, the poet and songwriter who helped popularize the event and Walter Boynto, the scientist who worked closely with Fowler over the years. The event, however, has grown over the years attracting citizens, scientists, activists and politicians who remained committed to the cause. This year's Wade-In drew over 100 people.

Video by Michael W. Fincham

Barret Wessel, a student at the University of Maryland-College Park, discusses the research he conducted as a Maryland Sea Grant REU student in 2014. Wessel explored the health of urban streams in Washington, D.C., and in Maryland. His results could help scientists to improve water quality in the small tributaries that flow into the Chesapeake Bay.

Video by Daniel Strain

Jeffrey Rice, a student at Florida Gulf Coast University, describes his life-long interest in marine science and why he chose to apply to Maryland Sea Grant's REU program. Jeffrey Rice served in the U.S. Navy for five years before enrolling in college. His research project for the REU program in 2014 focused on how blue crabs living in the Chesapeake Bay might respond to ocean acidification.

Video by Daniel Strain

Isabel Sanchez lives in Puerto Rico and attends the Universidad Metropolitana in Puerto Rico. Here, she discusses how she hopes to use science to benefit the island. She wants to explore the ecology of Puerto Rico's bioluminescent lagoons, which are home to populations of algae that can produce their own light. Sanchez took part in Maryland Sea Grant's REU program in 2014.

Video by Daniel Strain.

Casey Todd's father was the last man born on Holland's Island so Todd grew up in Crisfield hearing the stories of life on an island that once held 70 homes, a school, a church, and more than 360 souls before most of the island disappeared beneath the Chesapeake Bay.

Color photos by David Harp. Video by Michael W. Fincham.

Hooper's Island is a chain of three islands, only two of which are connected by bridges today. Jay Newcomb and Johnny Schockley talk about the high water they've seen over the years.

Video by Michael W. Fincham. Photograph of marsh by David Harp.

When Superstorm Sandy sent high water heading into Crisfield, the storm surge flooded out more than 300 homes. Some sought shelter, rescued by a number of first responders, including the Maryland National Guard and the Somerset County Swift Water Rescue Team, led by waterman John Barnette.

Video by Michael W. Fincham.

Over 22 years Bill Hargis built the Virginia Institute of Marine Science into a broad-based lab capable of addressing the environmental issues facing Chesapeake Bay. As director, he spoke out for science findings that highlighted pollution threats from industry, putting his own career at risk.

The four videos were filmed and edited by Michael W. Fincham.

Poplar Island in the mid-Chesapeake Bay is now being developed as a diked holding site for sediment dredged from the Bay's shipping channels. Scientist Lorie Staver is studying the ongoing regrowth of grasses planted to stabilize the island and to provide habitat for wildlife.

This video was filmed by Michael W. Fincham and edited by Dani Thompson.

The runoff of fertilizer and animal waste can rob the Chesapeake Bay of oxygen that blue crabs need — and so can sewage from small towns, suburbs and cities.

Three decades ago, scientists working on Maryland's Patuxent River showed how sewage discharges robbed the river of oxygen, creating dead zones that can kill fish and crabs. Their discoveries set the stage for the current campaign to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.

Graduate student Cassie Gurbisz created this video about her research on the increased growth of submerged aquatic vegetation in the Susquehanna Flats in the northern Chesapeake Bay. She talks about the effects the recovery had on the ecosystem. Gurbisz conducted her research at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science with Professor Michael Kemp as her advisor.

This video is posted courtesy of Cassie Gurbisz.

In this video you can see a small seine boat from the 80-foot-long snapper rig "Hush Puppy" as it surrounds a school of menhaden.

The Corsica River on Maryland's Eastern Shore is a little waterway with big problems. But it is also the site of one of the most intensive restoration efforts ever mounted in the Chesapeake watershed. Take a tour with some of the Corsica’s champions to learn about efforts on the ground.

Video by Matthew Ellis, Maryland Sea Grant.

Who invents new oysters? Stan Allen does. He not only breeds disease-resistant oysters by speeding up the familiar process of natural selection, but he's also created a new kind of oyster, an oyster nature never designed. His invention is called a triploid oyster. It carries extra chromosomes and in the right conditions, it can grow nearly twice as fast as natural oysters. Widely grown on oyster farms along the west coast and in other countries, the triploid oyster is now coming to the Chesapeake.

Video by Michael Fincham, Maryland Sea Grant.

Oyster gardening, growing baby oysters off a dock, keeps growing in popularity among Bay-area residents interested in restoring water quality in Chesapeake Bay. Most of those dockside oysters will end up on sanctuary reefs where they will go to work filtering water at the rate of 50 gallons a day. Maryland residents can now get oysters and gear and training from a number of environmental organizations around the state. Here's how one organization trains and equips new gardeners.

Video by Michael Fincham, Maryland Sea Grant.

The Ocean City Beach Patrol began in 1930 with one lifeguard watching over several blocks of swimming beach. The beach patrol now numbers nearly 200 lifeguards watching over 10.5 miles of public beach.

Video by Michael Fincham, Maryland Sea Grant.

Terrapin populations seem to be booming out on a new, largely rebuilt island on the eastern side of Chesapeake Bay. When biologist Willem Roosenburg began monitoring terrapin nests on Poplar Island, he found hatchling survival rates as high as 70 to 80 percent. The Army Corps of Engineers has been diking and filling this site to create a large manmade island out of several small, separate islets that were dwindling away, the victims of erosion and subsidence. The new island is now the disposal site for dredge material dug out of the shipping channels of Chesapeake Bay, but it also holds several wetland cells where female terrapins can dig their nests, lay eggs and have high hopes their offspring will survive. The reasons: few predators, little boat traffic, no highway traffic, no commercial harvesting.

Video by Michael Fincham, Maryland Sea Grant.

Diamondback terrapins became the unofficial mascot for the University of Maryland teams as early as 1924, though "Testudo" would not become the official mascot for the school until 1933. For decades Testudo was often a comic or a combative cartoon character. In 2003, University Marketing and Communications began its well-publicized "Fear the Turtle" campaign that created a handsome, charismatic, roaring terrapin.

Produced by Mac Nelson and University Video.

When the University of Maryland wanted to highlight its continuing rise to prominence as an academic and research institution, it turned again to its terrapin mascot and sent "Testudo" rocketing into space in this 2004 television spot.

Produced by Mac Nelson and University Video.

"Fear the Turtle" began as a T-shirt slogan, coined by a fan, to celebrate Maryland's sports teams, but it grew into a well-funded marketing campaign to publicize the University of Maryland's high rankings for academics and research. Marching terrapins were unleashed in a 2005 television spot.

Produced by Mac Nelson and University Video.

The University of Maryland grew out of small agricultural college in College Park where cadets, many of them engineering students, began forming baseball and football teams in the 1890s, largely against the wishes of the faculty who saw sports as a distraction from study. The teams were often called "The Aggies" or "The Farmers," and they lost more than they won until 1905 when a student named H.C. "Curley" Byrd began to star as a pitcher for the baseball team, a quarterback for the football team and a sprinter for the track squad. In 1912, he returned as a football coach with big plans for his little alma mater.

From Keeping the Promise: The Rise of the University of Maryland.

By 1920 the aggie college had become the home campus of a new University of Maryland. By 1924, the football coach began calling his football teams "The Maryland Terrapins," and by 1935, the coach was president of the university. During his 19-year tenure, H.C. Curley Byrd raised funds for expanding the campus and redesigned it with Georgian-style architecture that reflected the colonial era in American history.

From Keeping the Promise: The Rise of the University of Maryland.

After World War II, President Curley Byrd opened the University of Maryland to all returning veterans with a high school degree and used funds from the G.I. bill to fund the building of Byrd Stadium and Cole Fieldhouse. He also hired a coach who would take his Maryland Terrapins to the top of college football.

From Keeping the Promise: The Rise of the University of Maryland.

This slender channel between Kent Island and the Eastern Shore was once a seafood center where 14 busy seafood houses bought oysters and crabs from hundreds of watermen. Only one seafood house and one shipping house are still open, but a new Maryland Watermen's Monument has now gone up here to honor all the men and women who once worked these waters — and the few dozen who still do.