THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 29, 1994 TAG: 9408270060
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
EVER EXPECT TO live long enough to see backfin crab meat that was two or three times as expensive as sirloin steak?
Well, it's happened.
No matter where you shop, that crab dip or crab meat entree is likely to cost you big bucks this year.
At Farm Fresh, backfin crab meat is $14.79 a pound. But you can get a nice steak for about half that.
So what is happening here?
It's a crab shortage. Up and down the bay, catches of blue crabs are either down or nonexistent. Those youngsters fooling around with a crab net and an old fishing line might as well try panning for gold.
And it isn't merely picked crab meat that's high. Live crabs plucked scratching and clawing from the bay now retail for up to $11 a dozen - nearly $1 a crab.
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission says crab prices have never been higher.
``I've never seen the price of crabs stay as high as they have throughout a season,'' said Dick Galloway, owner of Virginia Beach Seafood Market on Mediterranean Avenue. His premium backfin crab meat sells for $12.99 a pound.
At The Lucky Star Restaurant in Virginia Beach, Amy Brandt, the co-owner and chef, said crab cakes are such a traditional regional item that the restaurant has kept the cakes on the menu. ``Last year our crab cakes were $14.50,'' she said. ``Now they are are $16.50. The price increase is merely the increase we have to pay for the crabs from our supplier. If the price goes any higher, we may have to take them off the menu.''
High prices are not only sad news for consumers, but many fear that the blue crab will vanish from Virginia waters like the oyster. Disease devastated the oyster industry in Virginia. Will crabs disappear, too?
Not likely. But that doesn't mean there isn't cause for concern.
The shortage of crabs is acute in the upper Chesapeake Bay, forcing many watermen onto the welfare rolls and closing down seafood-packing businesses that have been around for decades.
Although the shortage is not as severe here, many Hampton Roads watermen have abandoned crabbing for the year.
``The crabbers complain there are just no crabs at all,'' said Costas Kambouropoulos, owner of Lynnhaven Seafood Market and Marina in Virginia Beach. He said crabbers who normally supply him with blue crabs have stopped crabbing and gone fishing for spot and croaker instead. His backfin crab meat sells for about $11 a pound. ``And that's a special,'' Kambouropoulos said.
This may be the worst crab season ever. True, watermen landed only 23 million pounds of crabs in 1992 - the lowest catch since the late 1950s. Last year, 50 million pounds were reported taken. But those figures are misleading because last year was the first time crabbers were required by law to report their total catch.
At the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, Roy Isley, head of fishing planning and statistics, said watermen will have to catch a lot of crabs before winter to match the meager catch total of last year.
Concern over dwindling crab catches last year led to a commission requirement that each crab pot be fitted with a cull ring this year. The rings, which are about 2 1/2 inches in diameter, allow the smaller juvenile crabs to escape and, hopefully, multiply.
Isley says the shortage is caused by a combination of factors, including weather, predation by fish and simply too much crabbing. Many watermen tend to blame fish such as rockfish and croakers, which feed on crabs, for the shortage.
But Isley - who is conducting his second survey of blue crabs for the commission - believes too much crabbing is responsible.
``Now that the oyster industry has gone kaput, people who used to oyster are now crabbing,'' Isley said. ``We are putting more stress on the crabs than before. The equipment has become more mechanized, and we have more pots. Now the crabbers go out with hundreds of pots. They have diesel engines and fish finders. In Hampton, the crabbers used to crab around Hampton's shores. Now if there are no crabs, they can go anywhere they want.''
Isley said low crab catches tend to be cyclical. ``But the down cycles are getting further down,'' he said. ``And the up cycles are peaking lower. We have to be mindful that we can deplete our crab resources like any other.''
Isley said the commission may call for further restrictions on crabbing next year because of the low crab totals for 1994. Limiting the time that peeler pots (traps for shedding crabs) are allowed is a possibility, along with a requirement for more than one cull ring per pot. by CNB