A Blue View is a weekly perspective on the life aquatic, hosted by the National Aquarium for 88.1 WYPR.

A Blue View

Today, the osprey is one of the Chesapeake Bay’s most iconic creatures, right up there with blue crabs, blue herons and oysters, but that wasn’t always the case.

Ospreys: A Chesapeake Success Story

For most of us, when we think of volcanoes, we picture great mountains looming over distant plateaus. Perhaps they’re cone-shaped in our minds eye, spewing burning ash and molten lava. Mount St. Helens and Mount Vesuvius are two such infamous volcanoes.

Underwater Volcanoes

The sea lamprey looks like the stuff of nightmares. An eel-like fish with a suction-cup mouth, 100-plus teeth and file-like tongue, it’s easy to imagine it searching the ocean, bays and lakes for its next meal.

Sea Lampreys: Earth’s Aquatic Vampires

Thousands of feet beneath the surface of the ocean, animals live, even thrive, in conditions that are impossible for most of us to even imagine.


Mysteries of the Deep

Spotting seals on Mid-Atlantic beaches at this time of year is a lot more common than you think. Manager of Animal Rescue for the National Aquarium, Jenn Dittmar, talks with John Racanelli about these special visitors and how to act when you spot a seal on our shores.

Seals on our Coasts

Most of us probably believe that we do a pretty good job of picking up after ourselves, but the reality is that trash does, in fact, make its way into our streets, our communities, our shores and our waterways.

Inside a Cleanup Event: What We Find In our Waterways

The colorful Black-Eyed Susan and the sweet-smelling magnolia are just two of the many stunning flowers and trees native to the Chesapeake Bay region.

From Backyard to Bay: The Impact of Planting Native Plants

Take a walk on your local shoreline and you might be lucky enough to spot a blue heron fishing for its next meal or sand crabs disappearing back into the sand after being exposed by a crashing wave.

More Than Meets the Eye

Anyone who has visited an Atlantic beach for a summer outing remembers its undulating sand dunes. But few know they’re also experiencing coastal geology that evolves in real time.

Ttransient Giants: How Sand Dunes Protect Our Beaches

A common decorating theme for beachside cottages and inns, sea stars, sand dollars and sea urchins signify summer vacation.

Seaside Wonders: Sea Stars and Urchins

Have you ever felt the tangle of seaweed around your ankle when wading in the water? For many beachgoers, it’s enough to send them scrambling for shore. For them, the most common words used to describe seaweed are “slimy” and “disgusting.”

Secrets of Seaweed

Summer is prime time for gardening and sprucing up our lawns—but what we do to our yards impacts our waterways than you might expect.

Landscaping and Gardening Without Polluting the Bay

In the broad Pacific Ocean near Guam, Challenger Deep descends to 36,000 feet. How deep is that? Turn Mount Everest upside down, add a mile and you still wouldn’t touch bottom.

A Place Like No Other

Forget “Shark Hunters.” There’s a wealth of fascinating facts that rarely get told.

Shark Trivia: Little-Known Facts

Around the Chesapeake Bay area, we have a specific word for landscaping with the environment in mind: Bayscaping.

Bayscaping  to Reduce Runoff

When it comes to biodiversity of plants and animals, the number of species typically increases as you move from the colder temperate zone to the warm tropics. The epicenter of salamander diversity, however, exists much further from the Equator—in fact, it’s here.

Maryland's Elusive Salamander Species

Consider the lives of eels. Aristotle once theorized that these long, thin fish were spontaneously generated from the mud of river bottoms. Though the true science behind the eel is more plausible than that, it’s equally fascinating.

The Amazing Life of the American Eel

Ask a young child to draw a shark and odds are she’ll pick up a gray crayon, draw a torpedo-shape on the page and complete the picture with an Impressionistic dorsal fin and tail, and an impressive mouth of teeth. Kids seldom forget the teeth.

My, What Big Teeth You Have

Like sharks, Atlantic sturgeon have been swimming the seas and breeding in East Coast bays and rivers since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Some of the earliest vertebrates on the planet, their fossil record dates back 150 million years.

Atlantic Sturgeon: Back to the Future

Sometimes called the rainforests of the sea, coral reefs are colorful, intricate ecosystems—among the most incredible natural wonders in the world.