The Chesapeake Bay supports the largest Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) breeding population in the world. The population experienced a dramatic reduction due to biocide-induced reproductive suppression in the post World War II era and reached an estimated low of 1,450 pairs by the early 1970s. By the mid 1990s, the population recovered to an estimated 3,500 pairs and breeding was documented on 427 of 878 named tributaries of the tidal Bay. Recovery has been exponential but spatially variable with average doubling times for defined geographic areas varying by more than an order of magnitude. Rates of population growth have been negatively related to salinity with the highest rates occurring within tidal fresh reaches suggesting that recovery has progressed from the main stem of the Bay toward the fall line. Virtually nothing is known about the breeding ecology of Ospreys in the lower saline waters of the Bay. The increase and diversification of man-made structures used for nesting has made a fundamental contribution to recovery and current distribution. A synthesis of information from several field sites throughout the Bay shows a collective increase in reproductive rate (young/active pair) from less than 0.8 in the 1960s to more than 1.2 by the mid-1980s followed by a reduction to below 1.0 in the late 1980s. Threats to the population continue to be the release of new classes of contaminants into the estuary and anthropogenic activities that have the potential to suppress reproductive rates and juvenile/adult survivorship.