Crab blues

Regulators step in to save the blue crab by imposing tougher harvesting rules on watermen

Date published: 3/2/2008

THE CHESAPEAKE BAY'S water- men are understandably angry. If it's not the bay's unhealthy conditions depleting the fisheries upon which their livelihoods depend, it's regulators setting harvest quotas and limiting their seasons.

With no anticipation of a healthier bay any time soon, and reports of the lowest crab harvest in Virginia history in hand, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission has done the only thing it could do: It has said it will set new rules limiting the number of crabs watermen may remove from the bay and the periods of time in which they may do it.

Maryland followed suit with new restrictions of its own, knowing that the two states must work in tandem to prevent the blue crab's numbers from dwindling to a point from which it cannot recover. Researchers say the bay's blue crab population is a third of what it was just 15 years ago.

Once the two states determine later this month what the exact limits will be, the result will be as intended: Astronomical prices for crabs will curtail demand. And more watermen will be looking for alternative work.

The sad truth, however, is that setting harvest limits for crabs is akin to prescribing aspirin for a cancer victim. It fails to address the real issue and doesn't prevent the pain from worsening.

The watermen, like crabs and oysters, are victims of a broader failure to implement the remedies that we all know could restore the bay's health. As one Chesapeake Bay Foundation official put it, even if no more crabs were taken from the bay, the creatures would continue to struggle without improved water quality and renewed habitat.

Until we control the nutrient loading of the bay and its tributaries from sewage-treatment plants, farms, residential lawns, and endless acres of impervious pavement, conditions will only worsen. The watershed ecosystem's ability to maintain the status quo will erode. As time passes, the region is at increasing risk of forgetting what a healthy Chesapeake Bay is, having taken for granted this key to its identity.

Bay advocates agree that regulating the blue crab fishery is a necessary evil at this point, and a last resort. The regulators grieve for the toll they are taking on the watermen's way of life, while knowing this is their only hope for preserving some portion of it.

Only reliable funding from every level of government can assure that progress toward the bay's recovery is made. If bay allocations are used as a source of general revenue when budgets get tight, how is this "commitment"?

It's our choice--and the one we are making gives little hope to crab or man.

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Date published: 3/2/2008