The 2024 Bay-wide Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey revealed last week shows the crustaceans are still below desired population levels, as the state’s Marine Resources Commission considers a request to maintain the same crabbing regulations in Virginia and opening a winter dredge season.
The VMRC Crab Management Advisory Committee voted last Wednesday afternoon to have the larger body consider allowing catches past December at its June meeting.
Currently, crabbing is only allowed between March through the middle of December in Virginia. The state had a winter dredging season up until 2008, when it was closed down following population lows that necessitated an emergency declaration.
“We had been talking about it, trying to get it open…for January and February, and have a poundage cap on it, like 1.5 million [pounds],” said committee member Spencer Headley, who made the motion to extend the dredging season at last week’s meeting.. “And 1.5 million pounds would not hurt their overall population.”
But Chris Moore, Virginia executive director of the non-profit Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the state “had a long way” to go before considering all the implications of opening that option again.
“We’re coming out of a year where we’re two years removed from the lowest winter dredge survey we’ve ever had,” Moore said. “I don’t think we would be on solid footing.”
The debate to reopen the winter fishery is focused around the increased value of crabs in those months, when there are fewer watermen pulling them in and other states like North and South Carolina allow fishermen to catch the blue crabs.
“The value is there,” said James Hudgins, president of the Virginia Waterman’s Association, in an interview with the Mercury while adding he was in support of the winter fishery for a limited number of boats, like 15 to 20. “You’re looking at double the amount of money.”
But the debate also includes the catch controls environmental advocates want put in place following the winter survey results that counted 133 million females, about 60 million below desired targets.
About 28% of the female crabs in the population were caught in 2023, comprising what is known as the exploitation rate. Virginia has some leeway to allow more catches before a 37% exploitation rate is met and mandates conservation measures, Hudgins said.
The winter dredge survey uses the same dredging technique to pull the crabs up from the bottom for research purposes, but releases them to the water. This year’s dredge research survey found that the crab population had decreased from the previous year’s abundance of 323 million to 317 million, a 2% decrease.
The long-term average for all crabs since the start of the survey is about 407 million, with the adult average being about 182 million.
Specifically, females — which are crucial to maintain because of their ability to continue producing offspring — were down from 152 million to 133 million, still below the target of 196 million. Males were also down from 55 million to 46 million. Juveniles showed a 16% increase to 138 million, but were still below an average of 207 million since the surveying began in 1900.
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission said in a news release that the adult female crab population was “continuing to surpass” average levels for the second year in a row but didn’t point out the other variations in numbers.
Maybe it's just me, but I think a time when the crab surveys continue to indicate a reduced population is not the best time to restart an old fishery that focuses on female crabs.
The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Pyjamarama up at The Other McCain.
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