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Hatchery spawns hope for crab stock enhancement
Panel recommends limit for crab harvests
They Check In and They Don't Check Out
For the first time, key officials from Virginia and Maryland are recommending a Baywide catch limit for blue crabs, the most valuable commercial species in the Chesapeake today.
The Bi-State Blue Crab Advisory Committee in late September adopted an overfishing threshold that says 10 percent of the spawning potential of crabs should be protected to reproduce each year to avert a potential population crisis.
By adopting the threshold, recommended by a panel of leading scientists, the committee set in motion a series of hearings this fall to determine what management options might be considered to maintain the limit. That could lead to new regulatory actions in both states and for the Potomac River next year. Hearing participants will also discuss whether a lower harvest “target” should be adopted to add a margin of safety to the threshold.
The committee’s action was watched warily by more than 100 watermen who packed the meeting. Many expressed concern they were being singled out for action, while too little was being done to to limit recreational fishing and to curb nutrient pollution that destroys crab habitat such as underwater grass beds.
The action came as both Virginia and Maryland appear headed toward poor, and perhaps record-low, crab catches.
The committee’s adoption of the threshold represents the first Baywide agreement on an overfishing definition for blue crabs. Although the committee is technically only advisory, it includes key officials from both states, as well as lawmakers, watermen, environmentalists, processors and others.
“We’ve got everyone on board,” said Tom Miller, of University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science, who presented the scientists’ recommendation to the committee. “This is a process that has brought the state management agencies along with us, has brought the politicians along with us, and has brought the watermen’s representatives along with us.”
While agreement has grown in recent years among scientists and managers that the blue crab was on the brink of being overfished, there had been no consensus until now as to just how many crabs could “safely” be caught.
The breakthrough came this summer when the committee convened a group of leading blue crab experts, both from the Bay and other states, to review all available information and set the outer boundary for harvests.
In recent years, catches have been near — and occasionally slightly beyond — that threshold.
Harvesting beyond the threshold does not necessarily mean the population would crash, scientists say. But it increases the risk of that happening, especially if poor reproduction were combined with poor environmental conditions.
Female crabs migrate toward the mouth of the Bay in the late summer to spawn; each one can produce millions of larvae. Those larvae swim in coastal waters for several months before returning to the Bay, often hiding from predators in grass beds until they grow larger.
The number of crabs “recruited” into the population each year is largely dependent on coastal conditions encountered by the larvae. When those unpredictable conditions are normal or average, fewer than 10 percent of the mature crabs’ spawning potential may be needed to maintain future populations.
But if a low proportion of mature crabs’ spawning stock was combined with poor environmental conditions, it could send the crab population into a downward spiral from which it might take years to recover.
Miller, in his presentation to the committee, likened the threshold to skating on thin ice. “You go out there and you might get back,” he told the committee, “but one of these days you’re going to fall through.”
Implementing the threshold will require new action by state agencies. Although the harvests have generally been near the threshold in recent years, the industry suffers from “gear saturation.”
That means more crab fishing gear is licensed by the states than is actually being used, so fishing pressure could still increase under current regulations, possibly pushing harvests beyond the threshold.
Also, because the threshold is a percentage of the population, the harvest would vary from year to year based on population changes. States will need to better gauge the numbers of crabs being caught during the season to ensure the threshold is not being surpassed.
States would also need better estimates of the number of crabs taken in the recreational fishery, which are not as carefully counted as those caught by commercial watermen.
This fall, the committee will hold hearings to get input from watermen and others about how harvests should be capped.
Hearing participants will also discuss something the committee left undecided for now — whether the states need to adopt lower harvest “targets,” both to further protect the stock and to potentially improve the quality of the fishery by producing larger crabs.
While the scientists could recommend a biological threshold needed to preserve the stock, the target represents a more subjective goal based on what people want from the fishery — whether it is larger crabs, more hard crabs, more peeler crabs, and so on.
“The stakeholders have to tell us what they want the fishery to look like,” Miller said. “Until we are given that guidance, there is no compelling biological reason that dictates which lower target is most appropriate.”
Common targets in other fisheries are 10–15 percent below the maximum fishing thresholds, Miller said.
Not everyone on the blue crab committee was sure that government agencies should interfere with the fishery beyond establishing a threshold that protects the stock. “Maybe we should just let the chips fall where they may,” said A.C. Carpenter, executive director of the Potomac River Fisheries Commission.
On the other hand, some believe that targets would produce benefits to both the fishery and the crab population.
Right now, most crabs are harvested shortly after they reach legal size. If harvest pressure was reduced, more crabs could get larger — and more valuable — before being harvested. In the 1970s, 100 crabs yielded 13–14 pounds of meat; the same number today yields only 7 to 10 pounds, according to a report prepared for the committee.
Larger crabs could also help the overall population. If some older crabs survive to spawn more than once, they can bolster the spawning effort each year — something that could be particularly important when population levels are low, or environmental conditions poor.
“Managing for a wider age or size range means if you have a bad recruitment year, there are still going to be adults around to get the generation going the following year,” Miller said.
If only small crabs are left to reproduce each year because the larger crabs have all been harvested, the population is increasingly susceptible to wide swings in abundance, as seems to have been the case in recent years, Miller said.
“We’ve pushed this animal so far that it is increasingly like an annual crop,” he said.
Ann Swanson, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, a panel representing state legislatures which is coordinating the blue crab committee, said hearing participants would be presented with a range of different management actions — such as limits on the number of crab pots, trotline lengths, gear and the length of day — that would achieve the threshold, as well as lower harvest targets.
The hearings are only to discuss management options, not to debate the threshold itself, Swanson said.
“The threshold is a biological number,” she said. “It’s a number that the best and the brightest in the field of crab science have recommended we need to sustain the population. Now it becomes a political decision as to how far from the threshold, or risk averse, we’re going to be.”
If measures are put in place to maintain the threshold, she added, a lower target could be phased in over a period of years. “As long as you are on the safe side of the threshold, you can phase these things in over time,” Swanson said. “You don’t have to do it all at once.”
The blue crab committee is to make its management recommendations by early next year.
But the prospect of additional regulations worries many watermen, who packed the committee’s Sept. 27 meeting to listen to the threshold discussion.
Larry Simns, president of the Maryland Waterman’s Association and a member of the committee, said he was worried that too much effort was focused on watermen, and too little on pollution problems that affect crab habitat.
Specifically, he said not enough is being done to control nitrogen and phosphorus runoff. Those nutrients cause algae blooms that block sunlight to underwater grass beds, which are important refuges for juvenile crabs from predators. “We’re doing little things here and there [about nutrients],” Simns said, “but nobody is doing enough.”
Surveys supported by the Bay Program have shown that the amounts of Bay grasses have generally remained stagnant over the past decade at an estimated 10 percent of their historic acreage. Meanwhile, Bay Program figures indicate that while progress has been made toward nutrient reductions, the states will fall well short of their year 2000 goals.
“You can put a moratorium on crabs today,” Simns said. “If you don’t do anything about these other problems, the crabs are going to be gone anyway. It’s the watermen who are taking the hit all the time. That’s why you see a turnout like we have today.”
A group of watermen and seafood processing companies recently formed a Blue Crab Conservation Coalition in response to the committee’s recommendations.
The coalition is recommending that the states begin licensing recreational crabbers who they say are harvesting increasingly large — and uncounted — numbers of crabs.
“The commercial industry has shouldered the conservation of crabs alone for years,” said Terrence Conway, chairman of John T. Handy Co. of Crisfield, MD, a crab processing plant. “And, we pledge to continue, but we believe it is time for sportsmen and environmentalists to join us. Recreational crabbers have not participated in the conservation of blue crabs.”
In addition, the coalition is recommending that the catch of striped bass and other predators in the Bay be increased. Many watermen contend that striped bass, croakers and other fish — populations of which are at their highest in decades — are eating huge numbers of young crabs.
“With the excellent supply of rockfish available now, additional catches will please both sport and commercial fishermen and will offer important protection for baby crabs,” Conway said.
Blue Crab Public Forums
The Chesapeake Bay Commission’s Bi-State Blue Crab Advisory Committee, in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, is sponsoring a series of public forums to present draft recommendations developed during its two-year study of blue crab management in the Chesapeake Bay. The forums are designed to obtain public comment on a series of potential management options and their harvest implications for the fishery. All participants planning to make oral comments must register on the signup sheet by 7 p.m. Oral comments will be limited to five minutes per registered speaker. All forums begin at 7 p.m., except where noted. The schedule is:
- Oct. 26: Chesapeake College, Wye Mills, MD.
- Oct. 30: Nandua High School, Onley, VA
- Nov. 1: Mechanicsville Fire Hall, Mechanicsville, MD
- Nov. 6: Washington High School: Princess Anne, MD
- Nov. 7: [7:30 p.m.] Rappahannock Community College, Glenns, VA
- Nov. 14: [2–4 p.m.] Maryland House of Delegates Environmental Matters Committee, Annapolis.
- Nov. 16: Harford County Council Chambers, Bel Air, MD
- Nov. 16: Virginia Marine Resources Commission, Newport News, VA
- Nov. 21: Tangier Combined School, Tangier, VA
For information on these forums, call Kevin Miller at 410-263-3420 or Russ Baxter at 804-786-4849.
Another forum, sponsored by the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, will take place 9 a.m. Nov. 17 in the Charles County Government Center, La Plata, MD. For information, call 800-266-3404.
Status of the Blue Crab & Its Fishery
These are highlights of a consensus statement of the Bi-State Blue Crab Advisory Committee that was adopted Sept. 27.
- The Chesapeake blue crab knows no state boundaries during its complex life cycle: Although it is a highly resilient species, changes in management Baywide are needed to ensure a vibrant blue crab population and a sustainable fishery far into the future.
- Overall abundance for all age groups of blue crabs is down.
- Fishing mortality has increased Baywide since the mid-1980s.
- Spawning stock biomass is below the long-term average.
- The fishery independent surveys show a decreasing percentage of legal-size crabs.
- The average size of crabs has decreased. It is likely that once crabs molt to more than 5 inches, most are harvested and do not have a chance to grow larger than 6 inches.
- The reproductive potential of crabs may be compromised because of the smaller size and lower abundance of mature males and females.
- Fishing effort has been at record levels Baywide, while the catch-per-unit effort has declined.
- There is a potential for fishing effort and fishing mortality to increase, both in the commercial and recreational fishery.
- The crab fishery is overcapitalized, resulting in higher than necessary costs to commercial fisherman.
- For the last 10 years, effort and landings in the peeler/soft crab fishery have increased substantially in Virginia, yet the consequences remain unknown.
- Fishing mortality must be reduced and fishing effort must be controlled in all sectors of the fishery to ensure the long-term sustainability of the crab stock and increase income in the fishery. Management programs to control effort that distribute income equitably, protect crabbers from risks of reducing effort, and facilitate entry into and exit from the fishery should be developed.
- A strategy for building and marketing the distinctive benefits of domestic crab in relation to foreign crab meat is needed.
- A protected spawning sanctuary-corridor complex is an appropriate means of protecting a portion of the blue crab spawning stock and other life stages in the lower Chesapeake Bay.
- Important habitats for the blue crab, such as seagrass beds in the Chesapeake Bay should be further investigated, restored and protected through improved water quality and other measures.
- The fishery independent surveys (Maryland & Virginia trawl surveys, winter dredge survey and the Calvert Cliffs survey) are important, long-term data sets essential in management.
- Funding for blue crab management, especially the fishery independent surveys, is a high priority and needs to be maintained and expanded.
