Another Crab License Buy Back Begins

God, I love alliteration

With Maryland's crabbing season getting under way Friday, the state is making a new bid to buy back commercial fishing licenses, particularly from the 650 license-holders officials estimate are no longer active on the Chesapeake Bay.

The Department of Natural Resources mailed buyback offers last month to all 2,258 people with unlimited tidal fishing or crab harvester licenses. The amount offered ranges from a base of $4,000 for the crab harvester license, which allows the holder to fish with up to 300 crab pots, to $12,000 for a tidal fishing license with authorization for 900 crab pots in the bay.

State officials say the buyback is intended to keep pressure on the bay's rebuilding crab population from soaring if all the holders of unused licenses were to go back on the water. All told, about 5,000 people hold state licenses of various types to catch crabs and sell them.

The department purchased 683 "limited crab catcher" licenses under an earlier buyback, which ran from July 2009 until last month, according to Lynn W. Fegley, assistant fisheries director. Another 500 who had not reported catching anything in several years opted to limit their catch to male crabs in return for being able to keep their licenses, while 70 agreed to "freeze" their licenses until state officials determine the bay's crab population has fully recovered from the steep declines that prompted tight catch restrictions to be imposed three years ago.

So how will buying back unused licenses help the crabs?  I guess the theory is that if crabbing gets really good again, or prices skyrocket, the people who are sitting on unused licenses will go back to crabbing.  Yeah, that'll happen all right.  But why not announce that you'll buy licenses back once, and then after that fails to reduce the number of licenses you'll simply cancel any licenses which don't report a significant catch in the next year?

Larry W. Simns, president of the Maryland Watermen's Association, said he's expecting a good harvest this year, though he noted that the spring cold snap could kill some crabs and depress the early season catch.

Simns said he thought it a "good idea" for the state to buy back more crabbing licenses, though he wasn't sure how many would go for the state's base offer.

My point exactly.  If the current inactive license holders think there's something to hold on for, and it doesn't cost them what they expect to gain out of the licenses, they'll hold 'em, rather than sell them.