THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 22, 1995 TAG: 9509220494
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
Tropical Storm Agnes, which rocked the East Coast in 1972, may have been a significant factor to the current population decline of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay, according to new scientific evidence revealed Thursday.
By destroying as much as 89 percent of the eel grass in the lower Bay, the storm wiped out crucial habitat for young crabs, said Rom Lipcius, an associate professor and crab expert at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point. The crabs, he said, hide and feed among the soft, bottom-growing vegetation.
Underwater grasses have slowly recovered from this natural shock, as have stocks of juvenile crabs, Lipcius told a special meeting of Virginia and Maryland officials who gathered to compare notes over an ominous 34 percent drop in Bay crabs over the past five years.
The big problem now facing the prized pincered species, renowned as a cultural symbol of the Bay as well as its most lucrative seafood resource, is overfishing of adult crabs, Lipcius said. If curtailed through closer catch regulations, he suggested, a biological recovery of stocks that began after Agnes swept sediments, nutrients and toxins into the Bay can continue on its natural course.
``If we don't act now to limit (commercial and recreational crabbing harvests), another natural event could occur and crash the fishery,'' Lipcius warned.
His theory, which soon will be published as a formal paper for peer review, capped an upbeat gathering of politicians, scientists, watermen and state regulators worried about the fate of the blue crab.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also released favorable new data Thursday. According to preliminary results, federal scientists have determined that while crabbing pressures have increased in Virginia and Maryland, enough adult crabs are mating to restore those caught each year.
``We're not in the danger zone yet,'' said M. Elizabeth Gillelan, director of NOAA's Chesapeake Bay program in Annapolis.
That assessment, combined with the storm theory, contradict conventional wisdom that the blue crab is suffering solely from overfishing, and that watermen and lax government agencies are to blame.
NOAA is expected to issue a final assessment this winter and make recommendations for better protecting Bay crabs.
Virginia and Maryland both convened special committees last year to study troubling trends in their combined $184 million crab industry. The panels will make suggestions to their respective legislatures in January.
This month, Maryland barred crabbing one day a week and shortened harvest hours each day in an attempt to arrest a 45 percent increase in captured female crabs.
Maryland watermen and environmentalists have complained, however, that if Virginia does not follow suit with limits on taking pregnant females, or sponge crabs, the crabs saved in Maryland will only be snatched in Virginia as they make their migratory journey around the Bay.
Virginia reacted by saying it will gauge the effectiveness of regulations imposed last fall before entertaining thoughts of more limits.
On Thursday, William Pruitt, chairman of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, which regulates state fisheries, gave an impassioned speech against new limits this year.
``There are some who assert that we haven't done our part to conserve the blue crab,'' Pruitt said. ``They're sadly misinformed.''
Pruitt also said he was ``personally against'' a proposal from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation that would create a no-crabbing sanctuary in waters deeper than 40 feet throughout the Bay.
And he lambasted the media for creating ``Chicken Little'' impressions that the Bay crab population was in a crisis.
In discussing his Agnes theory, Lipcius described crab stocks as ``in the low phase of abundance'' but added that they remain extremely vulnerable and in need of greater protection.
Gene Cronin, a Maryland scientist who has studied crabs since 1940, said he has heard theories about Agnes damaging oysters, clams and underwater grasses, but never crabs.
``It's an interesting hypothesis,'' he said. ``It seems to make sense, really; but I'd like to read more about it.''
Cronin recalled how Agnes dumped record rains on the Bay in June 1972, dropping its salinity to near zero almost overnight and turning its color a chocolate brown from all the runoff sediment and mud.
Lipcius said he was struck with the idea while driving home from a meeting on crabs with his colleague, Rochelle Seitz, a doctoral candidate in marine biology.
``It just seemed to fit,'' he said. ``It was just one of those flashes that happens in science. We were very excited. I'd be shocked it it didn't turn out to be true.'' MEMO: Several sentences of this article were left out of the published text.
ILLUSTRATION: Color graphic by John Corbitt, Staff
Troubles Agnes may have stirred up
KEYWORDS: BLUE CRABS by CNB