THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 13, 1995 TAG: 9508130636
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 164 lines
For the last 11 years, seafood dealer Jimmy Johnson has counted on a good supply of blue crabs to operate his crab processing plant in Washington, N.C., each summer.
But this year, something has happened to the blue crabs in North Carolina waters.
The number of crabs arriving at the loading dock of Johnson's Washington Crab Co. on Pierce Street has dropped about 50 percent this year - meaning shorter work weeks for Johnson's employees and higher prices for his customers, when he has crabs to sell.
``We're struggling. It's tough right now to get up and come to work,'' Johnson said Friday. ``I came in this morning, and we didn't have a crab to pick.''
Preliminary indications are that the 1995 crab catch is down significantly from last year in North Carolina and the Chesapeake Bay. The drop is worrying fishermen and processors along the coast and creating unique management problems for fisheries managers in the region.
The stakes are high for the coastal economy.
In North Carolina in 1994, the total blue crab catch was worth $31.7 million, making it the most valuable commercial catch in the state - nearly twice as much as the next most important commercial catch, shrimp, worth $19 million. In Virginia, blue crabs accounted for about $10 million of the total Virginia-based shellfish catch of about $17 million in 1992, the most recent year for which complete data is available.
``It's a national product. It's an international product,'' said Harley
Speir, biologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in Annapolis. ``It's highly important from both the recreational standpoint and the economic standpoint.''
Fishermen and fisheries managers in North Carolina say a combination of factors may have led to the decline: The complex life cycle of the blue crab; an increase in the number of fishermen plying waters waterways for blue crabs; and neglect by fisheries managers.
``I just don't know the answer, but I do know one thing, we don't have a lot of crabs,'' said Sherrill Styron, a Pamlico County seafood dealer.
``Believe you me, crabs are scarce.''
In past years, Styron has bought, on average, up to 30,000 pounds of crabs a day from fishermen who have brought their catch to the dock at Garland-Fulcher Seafood in Oriental in Pamlico County.
But in recent weeks, his daily supply of blue crabs has dwindled to about 4,000 pounds.
According to preliminary data from the Division of Marine Fisheries, the state's blue crab catch is down about 52 percent from January through June 1995, compared to the same period in 1994. Hard crabs caught in crab pots are down 54.5 percent and those caught by crab trawls are down 67 percent. The peeler crab and soft crab catch has increased 27.3 and 3 percent, respectively.
In the Chesapeake Bay, the crab population has dropped 61 percent in the past two decades. Thirty-four percent of the drop occurred in just the past five years, according to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Some North Carolina fishermen and officials say the fisheries division is unprepared to respond to fluctuations in the crab catch because the state has been slow to develop a fisheries management plan and to hire staff members to help with crab research.
``Now all of a sudden we're seeing a dramatic decrease in the amount of blue crabs, and they're kind of waking up,'' Johnson said.
In 1994 when the General Assembly approved its budget, lawmakers appropriated $233,441 to establish a crab fisheries research office in Tyrrell County and to hire two Division of Marine Fisheries staff members to conduct research into blue crabs and help develop a management plan for blue crabs. Those two positions have been filled.
But a third funded staff position has yet to be filled.
Judy Powell, a Division of Marine Fisheries assistant director who is in charge of division personnel matters, said Friday that the name of a prospective staff member had been submitted to state personnel officials in Raleigh.
But she said she could not explain why it had taken the division nearly a year to fill the position.
Despite the economic importance of crabs to fishermen, their habits remain a mystery to most fisheries biologists and managers.
In North Carolina, some critical information gaps about the blue crab exist, according to David Eggleston, an assistant professor at N.C. State University. For example, fisheries managers lack information on changes in the spawning stock; the effects on the population of wasteful harvesting practices such as abandoned crab pots; the effects of shrimp trawling in molting habitats and the effects of the environment on population changes.
Eggleston is evaluating blue crab sampling programs as part of a study for the fisheries Moratorium Steering Committee.
At a committee on Thursday in Wilmington, Eggleston called for a greater division emphasis on crab population surveys, improved commercial and recreational reporting requirements on crab landings, and tighter gear restrictions to protect the blue crab stocks.
And despite the creation of the Tyrrell County office in 1994 to study blue crabs, fisheries managers on March 17 told the Marine Fisheries Commission in New Bern that developing a blue crab management plan was not one of the agency's top priorities for 1995.
By May 19, fisheries Director Bruce L. Freeman told the commission that development of a blue crab man had been made a top priority for the division.
But as of Friday, sources within the agency said little progress has been made.
Some scientists believe that fluctuations in blue crab populations are, in part, the result of large numbers of blue crab larvae being swept away by ocean currents and winding up in different inlets or estuaries from where they are born.
But some of the problems facing the blue crab stocks are man-made.
The decline in water quality and an increase in the number of fishermen plying the water for blue crabs are partly responsible for fewer blue crabs, fisheries managers and fishermen say
As the stocks of other fish and shellfish have declined in North Carolina and the Chesapeake Bay, more fishermen have bought crab pots and have joined the ranks of crabbers.
In 1994, the proliferation of crab pots on the Albemarle Sound, and the conflicts among local crabbers were partly responsible for the approval by North Carolina lawmakers of a freeze on commercial fishing license sales.
``I honestly do think there's too many fishermen,'' Styron said. ``I don't know where to draw the line. There's going to have to be some compromise somewhere.''
The dearth of blue crabs is affecting most fishermen and dealers along North Carolina's coast.
In the Carteret County fishing community of Glouchester near Harker's Island, commercial fisherman Gary White said he is seeing fewer crabs in his crab pots this year than any year in the past.
Only the Albemarle Sound area, where some fishermen are reporting generally good blue crab catches, appears to have escaped the drop in crab supply, according to reports from some fishermen and seafood dealers.
But the relative abundance of crabs in the Albemarle Sound has created its own problems.
Some crabbers with dealer licenses are selling their catch illegally to out-of-state trucks that have come to northeastern North Carolina because of the plentiful crabs in the region, according to one local dealer.
Some of these crabbers are being paid cash and are failing to fill out the necessary paperwork, creating problems for fisheries enforcement officers and leading to gaps in blue crab data, according to Murray Fulcher, owner of a seafood processing plant on Ocracoke and a member of the fisheries Moratorium Steering Committee.
Whatever the cause, consumers are paying higher retail prices at crab markets.
In North Carolina, the retail price for good quality lump crab meat is about $20 a pound, about $4 to $6 higher than last year. Around the Chesapeake Bay, customers are paying more than $60 for a bushel of crabs that would normally sell for $30 to $40 a bushel, according to seafood dealers and fisheries officials.
Fishermen are generally are seeing higher prices for the crabs they do catch.
But crab dealers are seeing profits dry up as scarce supplies mean shorter work days and fewer crabs picked, and their employees are seeing smaller paychecks.
``It means that for the first time in 11 years, we will show a loss for the first six months of the year. It means my people are not fully employed and it means we're not able to put up crab meat to sell in the winter,'' Johnson said.
``It's already affecting me into next year.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphics
STATE COMMERCIAL HARD BLUE CRAB LANDINGS
Source: Division of Marine Fisheries
JANUARY THROUGH JUNE BLUE CRAB LANDINGS DATA
Source: Division of Marine Fisheries
[For complete graphics, please see microfilm]
by CNB