ANNAPOLIS (AP) — Maryland will cut its female blue crab harvest up to 40 percent this year to address fears the crabs are reaching dangerously low levels in the Chesapeake Bay.
An initial draft of proposed regulations released yesterday laid out plans by Maryland fisheries regulators to safeguard full-grown females, which biologists say need more protections to replenish the Chesapeake’s population.
The plans include lowering bushel limits on female crabs, or even closing Maryland’s mature female crab harvest in April and May. The regulations will be reviewed by crabbers before becoming final within a few weeks.
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, both Democrats, are scheduled to announce details about the Chesapeake’s low crab population next week. Virginia has already announced tighter limits in that state’s waters, such as a larger sanctuary and new limits on winter dredging.
The tougher regulations come after a decade of low harvest numbers in Maryland and Virginia. The states coordinate a wintertime dredge survey to estimate the Chesapeake’s crab population, and those surveys show the crabs have been hovering near dangerous lows for years. Fisheries regulators say the harvest should be slashed baywide until the population reaches safer levels.
Maryland’s crab harvest last year was the second-lowest on record since 1945; Virginia’s was a record low.
The most recent survey available, in 2007, showed there are about 143 million blue crabs of reproducing age in the Chesapeake. Scientists want to see about 200 million adult reproducers. Mr. Kaine and Mr. O’Malley planned to announce 2008 survey numbers on Tuesday, and the news likely isn’t good.
“We have had a series of years in which it has shown that our spawning stock of crabs in the Bay, and our juveniles, those numbers are not improving,” said Frank Dawson, assistant secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
Maryland’s preliminary draft released yesterday sets a goal of allowing crabbers to take 46 percent of the total stock per year. That would require harvest cutbacks of 20 percent to 40 percent.
Maryland regulators laid out three scenarios — a 20 percent harvest cut, a 30 percent harvest cut and a 40 percent harvest cut.
In any scenario, the state appears headed toward setting a female size limit of 6.5 inches on female crabs, which would cut the harvest 16 percent and save about 12 million to 15 million female crabs. Watermen have fought that proposal for years because it would require sorting through crab pots to sort out the biggest females to throw back.
Maryland’s draft proposal also includes lower bushel limits on females, including a possible ban on catching females in October, when females group together and are easily caught by watermen. Maryland is also considering putting female crabs off-limits completely for recreational crabbers.
Fisheries managers in both states have promised watermen that they will do a better job coordinating harvest limits this year to address longtime complaints that the Chesapeake states take varying approaches to managing blue crabs.
Regulators say hard times are on the way for crabbers, as well as crab houses and restaurants that process and sell Chesapeake crabs. But they say the cutbacks are needed to prevent the Chesapeake’s signature critters from going into serious decline.
“We need to reduce the percentage of crabs we’re taking out of the Bay,” Mr. Dawson said.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.