THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 20, 1996 TAG: 9601200290
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TODD SHIELDS, THE WASHINGTON POST
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
A new federal study concludes that the Chesapeake Bay blue crab is not being overfished and that recent declines in its population are part of a natural cycle.
The finding, which comes as Maryland and Virginia ponder fresh regulations to protect the crab, contradicts a series of reports suggesting the population was in severe decline.
The study's director and conservationists urged that the new results not be used to blunt regulatory efforts. Watermen and some public officials called the study a welcome corrective to months of alarmism.
``It's important new information, and I think it's good news,'' said M. Elizabeth Gillelan, Chesapeake Bay director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which directed the study. ``But I think we still need to look at precautionary measures to protect the long-term stability of the stock and keep it in the healthy condition it seems.''
The study, the result of extensive analysis and computer modeling over five months by nine scientists from several agencies, has yet to be formally released, and must still undergo peer review, said Gillelan.
She outlined the study's results Wednesday for a group that advises Maryland officials on how to manage the crab, the most important commercial resource in the bay. The study, called a stock assessment, represents the first attempt to comprehensively assess the state of the crab.
``What we found was no evidence of overfishing,'' Gillelan said. The crab stock is able to recover from fishing harvests, and there are adequate numbers of young crabs, according to the study. Gillelan said the crab population had swelled through the 1980s, and moved back to average levels in this decade.
``That's about right,'' said Bob Evans, president of the Anne Arundel County Watermen's Association, who has been crabbing since 1969. ``It's a cycle-type thing.''
Evans said emergency restrictions imposed last fall by Maryland were ``disheartening.'' They shortened the season and limited watermen's days and hours. Those regulations have lapsed, and Maryland officials are devising new regulations to limit the catch. So are regulators in Virginia, where watermen suffered their worst crab harvest in decades last year.
Officials in both states said the NOAA report could affect the debate, which gained impetus last year with reports that overall abundance of blue crabs in the Bay had dropped 34 percent in the 1990s and that female, egg-bearing crabs were undergoing particularly sharp declines.
``There are going to be some people who are going to say this (NOAA report) means we don't have to do anything,'' said Timothy Hayes, a Richmond lawyer who sits on the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, a regulatory agency.
The commission is to vote Tuesday on crab-conservation measures, and Hayes said the report could affect details of some of the measures being considered. ILLUSTRATION: Color drawing of crab
by CNB