Finally, daytime temperatures are moderating after longer than usual sub-freezing snaps this winter and the ice floes are disappearing. That means the crews from Maryland’s and Virginia’s natural resources departments who conduct the annual winter crab dredge surveys have some catching up to do.
“We had a couple of weeks where we just couldn’t get out because of the weather and that put a damper on our survey,” says Mandy Bromilow, the Maryland Department of Natural Resource’s blue crab program manager. “There were days when the ice was in the slip and we couldn’t even get the boat out.”
There were other days when high winds made it too difficult to handle the boats and the dredging equipment. And crews in Virginia had the same problems, she added.
“After that nine, 10 days of cold, the weather did a complete180 on us and we had temperatures in the 50s, but that brought that wind out of the south and we couldn’t go out and work in that,” says Chris Walstrum, a fisheries biologist with Maryland’s DNR. He estimates they’re about three weeks behind where they should be because of the weather. “So, we’re kind of behind the eight ball now.”
Those cold snaps may have had some effects on the crabs as well, DNR’s Bromilow says. “It’s too soon to say how the storms have affected the crabs, but in past years these kinds of cold snaps tend to increase morbidity.”
Walstrum says they haven’t seen anything “out of the ordinary” yet. “But there’s still a lot of winter to go.”
According to Bromilow, the crews from both states are a little more than halfway through sampling now and Maryland crews are aiming for sites in the Patuxent River and some open bay sites as well. But the weather delays don’t mean they won’t finish by the end of March, she added.
“We have built into the survey some buffer time. We just won’t be able to finish as early as we would.”
Some results from the MD crab survey:
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