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Chesapeake's Blue Crabs In Population Pinch

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By DAVID A. FAHRENTHOLD, The Washington Post

Published: November 18, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Chesapeake Bay's famous blue crabs - feisty crustaceans that are both a regional symbol and a multimillion-dollar catch - are hovering at historically low population levels, scientists say, as pollution, climate change and overfishing threaten the bay's ultimate survivor.

This fall, a committee of federal and state scientists found that the crab's population was at its second-lowest level in 17 years, having fallen to about one-third the population of 1993. They forecast that the crabbing season that ends Dec. 15 in Maryland will produce one of the lowest harvests since 1945.

This year's numbers are particularly distressing, scientists say, because they signal that a baywide effort to save the crab begun in 2001 is falling short.

Governments promised to clean the Chesapeake's waters by 2010. That effort is faltering, however, leaving "dead zones" where crabs can't breathe.

Maryland and Virginia have changed their laws to cut back the bay's crab harvest. Watermen, however, repeatedly have been allowed to take too many of the valuable shellfish, scientists say. The watermen, meanwhile, say they're being unfairly blamed.

The Chesapeake crab harvest, which exceeded 100 million pounds at its peak in the 1960s, fell to 48.9 million pounds last year.

Said Howard Ernst, a U.S. Naval Academy professor and a critic of government efforts to protect the Chesapeake: "What we ultimately lose is not only a resource, but a unique and irreplaceable cultural heritage."

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