THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 24, 1995 TAG: 9510240331
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 33 lines
The smallest blue crab catch in 36 years may lead to more restrictions on Virginia's watermen, Virginia Marine Resources Commission officials said.
This year's catch totaled 25 million pounds - half the size of the 1993 harvest and 8 million pounds less than 1992, which had been the leanest harvest since 1959, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Monday.
Chesapeake Bay, historically the world's top producer of blue crabs, slipped to second place in 1993 behind the Gulf of Mexico. The declining crab catch is doubly bleak to watermen, who already have lost the oyster crop to disease and, some say, overfishing.
Last year, VMRC added 75 square miles to a 153-square-mile sanctuary near Cape Charles.
The VMRC also marked off 75 square miles in Hampton Roads as a winter crab sanctuary to protect hibernating crabs from dredging during the winter.
Also, the commission required that pots be fitted with a second escape ring to protect undersized crabs, and limited the number of pots a waterman can set for molting crabs, which supply the growing soft shell trade.
Nevertheless, the latest data show that ``something is definitely wrong'' with the crab catch, said VMRC member Timothy Hayes of Richmond. by CNB