THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 11, 1995 TAG: 9508110230
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER AND JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 112 lines
A leading environmental group is urging Virginia and Maryland to temporarily ban the harvesting of blue crabs from deep waters in the Chesapeake Bay, beginning ``as soon as possible.''
Citing scientific surveys that paint a bleak future for the once-prodigious crab, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation asked Thursday that an extensive no-crabbing sanctuary be created in waters deeper than 40 feet, which would close roughly 25 percent of the Bay and its tributaries.
As envisioned, the sanctuary would stretch from Baltimore to Virginia Beach and would give crabs, for the first time, a safe passage through the Bay during their annual migratory journey. Marine police would patrol the zone year-round.
Without such action, the foundation warns, the region's renowned crabbing industry, which for decades was believed immune from pressures that have ravaged other Bay fisheries, may be headed for a collapse.
``We believe it is a good interim step and a workable long-term approach for conserving the blue crab spawning stock,'' the foundation wrote in a four-page letter sent Thursday to state leaders in Virginia and Maryland and to the Potomac River Fisheries Commission.
But the foundation's proposal could run aground from opposition from watermen, who in past hearings before the Virginia Marine Resources Commission have fiercely resisted any crab-harvest curtailment. And the report will need strong endorsement from independent scientists, who will study it closely in coming weeks.
``At this point I can't recommend (the foundation report),'' said Rom Lipcius, a crab specialist and associate professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester. ``Some of their statements are extreme. The crab population is definitely in a low phase, but not at or near collapse. It (the proposal) is an idea that hasn't been examined in depth.''
Watermen said further restrictions could drive many out of the fishing industry altogether.
``If we take 40-foot water (as a restriction), you might as well take crab dredging and throw it away,'' said Billy Moore, past president of the Virginia Watermen's Association and owner of Moore/Moore Seafood in Poquoson. ``There's no scientific proof this needs to be done. We've done a lot the last two years to try to help our crabs - cull rings, harvest limits. We're seeing progress.''
The proposal surfaces as lawmakers and government experts in Virginia and Maryland are studying possible remedies to declining crab stocks.
Baywide, the crab population has dropped 61 percent in the past two decades, 34 percent of which occurred in just the last five years, according to research by the institute.
Pressed by scientists and environmentalists, both states created special committees last year to study the crab problem. The committees are supposed to report their findings next winter, in time for legislative sessions in early 1996 in Richmond and Annapolis.
William Goldsborough, a foundation scientist who has been shopping the sanctuary idea for several months, said he hopes the committees embrace the concept and act on it before 1996.
``I think most everyone, from watermen to scientists, recognize there's a big problem out there,'' Goldsborough said, ``and the longer we wait, the worse it'll get.''
Bay crab populations historically have ebbed and flowed like the tides. They hit bottom in the 1930s and again in the '60s, with experts at the time warning of a pending crash, mostly because of overfishing.
Congress even convened special hearings in the late '60s to discuss a possible ban on crabbing. The hearings ended abruptly, however, when scientists recorded a sudden and large population burst late that summer.
Indeed, crab stocks always have rebounded, often without explanation, or because of a modest regulatory change, such as tighter gear restrictions or shorter seasonal limits.
``I'm the first to admit that the last two years, we've had a low harvest,'' said Moore, the Poquoson seafood owner. ``This year the harvest will be better, maybe 15 percent over what it was last year. I see a boom cycle for the next four years.''
Goldsborough said statistics from numerous surveys are too consistent and too low to illustrate anything but a serious decline.
He is especially concerned about a shrinking number of mature female crabs, caused mostly by increased harvesting pressure from watermen with no other cash crop to rely on but mature crabs.
Since 1990, Virginia researchers have recorded a 47 percent drop in abundance of mature female crabs. Without enough females, not enough baby crabs are born at the mouth of the Bay each summer.
Not that the two Bay states have been sitting idly by, watching the decline. The Virginia Marine Resources Commission approved a package of new restrictions last fall, including a shorter season, fewer crab pots per boat and other gear limits.
But the package stopped short of tackling the thorny issue of barring the practice of dredging female crabs from the lower Bay. The females swim to Hampton Roads in the winter in prepartion for the spawning season. They dig themselves into the muddy bottom, where they are prime targets for hard-scraping dredges.
Local watermen complained this winter that they could barely find enough females to make the physically demanding chore of winter dredging worth the effort.
Virginia officials have said they would consider toughening the restrictions package if the summer crab season was a bust. Federal and state experts are currently working on a new, more precise study that would tally in depth just how the season is progressing. Results are expected in September.
Despite his misgivings about the Bay Foundation's recommendations, Lipcius, the crab specialist, says he is glad to see the study released.
He believes it may spur long-overdue changes to current fishery management policies.
``We don't want to approach what happened in the striped bass fishery, where there was a total moratorium,'' Lipcius said. ``We need to have an extreme view. Maybe it will open people's eyes that something needs to be done.'' by CNB