Global warming threatens Chesapeake Bay

WASHINGTON, May 23 (UPI) -- U.S. conservationists said the Chesapeake Bay region could lose more than half of its ocean and estuarine beaches if global warming continues unabated.

A study by the National Wildlife Federation projected rising sea levels will significantly reshape the region's coastal landscape and threaten hunting and fishing, which contribute about $725 million to the region's economy.

"Our region's national treasure and the economy it supports may be unrecognizable within the lifetime of a child born today," NWF President and Chief Executive Officer Larry Schweiger said Thursday in a release.

The report said that if global sea levels rise two feet by 2100, more than 167,000 acres of undeveloped dry land and about 161,000 acres of brackish marsh would be lost, replaced in part by more than 266,000 acres of newly open water and 50,000 acres of saltmarsh.