The Virginian-Pilot
© February 27, 2008

NEWPORT NEWS

Virginia officials approved a spate of new rules Tuesday for harvesting blue crabs from the Chesapeake Bay, in the hope of restoring stocks of the seafood favorite, whose numbers have whittled to near-record lows in recent years.

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission voted unanimously for the changes at a tense, standing-room-only meeting in Newport News. Commission members also signaled that even more dramatic reforms are likely coming in the run-up to this year’s crabbing season , which begins March 17.

At the meeting packed with mostly angry commercial crabbers, critics denounced the new regulations as further examples of poor state management of the prized crab fishery, a staple in Virginia and Maryland for centuries. They predicted the rules will do little but cause

economic pain.

“We’re not going to survive this,” said Charles Pruitt, a waterman from Tangier Island, a commercial fishing hub in the middle of the Bay. “You might as well throw us out now; we’ve been regulated to death already.”

Beginning this season, the marine commission will require two escape hatches, or cull rings, to remain open on crab pots throughout the Bay – a move intended to give undersized female crabs a better chance to survive and spawn.

Commission members also increased the minimum size limit for peeler crabs, or those about to shed their shells and which are sold later as soft crabs, a delicacy to many seafood lovers.

They also moved to curb “agents” and “permit stacking,” in which watermen can let someone else catch crabs in their place – a loophole that state officials say has been exploited for years.

And the commission capped the number of watermen who can dredge crabs, almost all of them females, from the muddy bottom of the Bay as they hibernate during winter months.

Only about 55 license-holders will be able to continue this practice, though officials said they may ban winter dredging entirely when the commission meets again in April to discuss other conservation measures.

Also on tap for debate in April will be cutting the amount of crab pots and traps by between 10 and 30 percent, and perhaps as high as 50 percent; doing away with recreational crabbing licenses; and enforcing no-harvest sanctuaries for longer periods during the commercial season.

“Believe me, the commission gets no pleasure out of passing regulations that make things more difficult for watermen,” said Steve Bowman, who heads the marine commission. “But the numbers don’t lie. Things are bad. They’re really bad.”

For example, the average annual harvest in Virginia and Maryland from 1945 to 2006 was 72 million pounds. The harvest in 2007 was expected to be about 40 million pounds, the lowest on record.

Researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science have also documented a 70 percent decline in the abundance of adult crabs since 1991 – a time when the state enacted 22 regulations designed to enhance stocks.

Jack Travelstead, state director of fisheries, said Tuesday that the years of regulation may not have turned the population around, but they probably helped avoid a complete collapse of the species.

Watermen, though, said the experience proved what they have argued for years – that the biggest problem facing crabs is not overfishing, which the commission has tried to regulate. Instead, they argued, crabs are suffering from a combination of environmental degradation – pollution, lost habitat, little oxygen to breathe – along with increasing numbers of natural predators such as striped bass, croakers and blue catfish.

“Water quality is the key,” Kelly Price, an Eastern Shore crabber, told the commission. “Without that, you lose habitat. And without habitat, you’re done.”

The moves Tuesday come as Maryland is wrestling with new regulations as well. The two states have been discussing joint strategies for weeks, officials said, and will continue to coordinate efforts.

Maryland is eyeing a maximum size limit for female crabs, but only wants to proceed if Virginia agrees to do the same, Travelstead said. The maximum limit, of 6½ inches, will be discussed at the April commission meeting.

As stocks continued to struggle last year, Virginia assembled a team of scientists and government experts from various Atlantic states. The team spent a year studying Virginia’s plight and concluded, among other things, that too many pots are being used to catch too few crabs, and that environmental woes are plaguing any revival.

The actions approved Tuesday stem from that scientific review. Virginia also is studying long-term management changes that would fundamentally shift how crabbing is governed.

That study is continuing but could include a days-on-the-

water system, in which crabbers would be granted specific times when they could go fishing, and could buy, sell or trade those rights as they please. The method has helped turn around the once-troubled sea scallop fishery off the Atlantic coast.

Copied from the Daily Press - Please note that overfishing is mentioned but what is not mentioned is that the commission publicly announced that the water quality is what has caused these conditions. KS

Crabbing limits are approved

Blue crab fishermen say the policies hurt them.

By PATRICK LYNCH | 247-4534

February 27, 2008

NEWPORT NEWS - Virginia officials took a step Tuesday toward reining in commercial fishing pressure on a blue crab population scientists say is vulnerable to collapse.

Despite repeated claims from watermen that poor water quality and an increase in natural predators are driving down blue crab numbers more than overfishing, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission voted unanimously to adopt new crabbing regulations. And likely on the way in March and April are even more regulations.

"Things are bad. They're really bad," said Commissioner Steven G. Bowman, referring to a population trend that has seen the Chesapeake Bay's crabs decline to less than a third of the early-1990s numbers.

The blue crab remains the bedrock of one of Virginia's most lucrative commercial fisheries. But a panel of crab biologists concluded months ago that years of overfishing was cutting too far into the blue crab stock and its ability to reproduce.

Watermen, scientists and regulators have disagreed on how much to blame unhealthy waters versus overfishing. During a three-hour public hearing, people from all three groups repeatedly made the point that a degraded Chesapeake Bay is not an abstract problem, but a stark reality that hampers commercial industry and tears at working-the-water traditions of Virginia's bay communities.

Bowman answered concerns from watermen that tougher regulations will cause them hardship by saying the commission was acting in the best long-term interest of the crabs and therefore the crab industry.

"You'd be just as right to come back here in five years (if the crab population collapsed), and say, 'Why didn't you do anything? It was your job to protect the crabs?' " Bowman said.

Doug Jenkins, president of the Twin Rivers Watermen's Association, said previous studies were too quick to single out overfishing. He questioned why researchers haven't looked more closely at the behavior and numbers of the crabs' natural predators — particularly croaker, rockfish and blue catfish.

Charles Pruitt, a Tangier Island waterman, asked why, if overfishing is the primary cause of the blue crab decline, does he also find far fewer starfish and spider crabs when he fishes? These species are not commercially fished, but their numbers seem to have declined just as fast, Pruitt said.

"We're not going to survive," Pruitt said. "We're gone. If you issue all these regulations, you might as well throw us out."

VMRC board member Rick Robins said the dire crab situation left the commission no choice.

He also said that the panel of scientists that targeted overfishing did not neglect to take the bay's ecological fragility into account.

"Our purpose is not to burn down the village to prove we can save it," he said. "This is not something we can shirk from."