Virginia's reduction in blue crab harvest meets goal

NEWPORT NEWS

As part of a state effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay blue crab, officials said Monday that they hit a key conservation target last year: reducing the harvest of female crabs in Virginia waters by at least 34 percent.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and his Maryland counterpart, Gov. Martin O'Malley, had urged a 34 percent cut in both states in order to give more female crabs a chance to survive, spawn and spark a population boom.

The two Democrats said they feared that without a crackdown, crab stocks and once-powerful industries that buy and sell the prized seafood species could collapse.

According to preliminary data released Monday, Virginia watermen caught 9.4 million pounds of female crabs from the Bay during a shortened and restricted 2008 season - a 37 percent decline over the average haul from the previous three years.

"This is good news," said Jack Travelstead, state director of fisheries. "It appears to indicate that what we've been doing is working."

While Travelstead said a weak economy and high fuel prices played roles in the smaller catch, new regulations and controls intended to protect female crabs helped.

Harvest results from Maryland were not available Monday, though a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources said there was a reduction in 2008. Just how much, though, is not known, spokesman Ray Weaver said.

As Virginia gears up for the 2009 season, which begins March 17, Travelstead said harvest restrictions will continue, though they might be eased somewhat, depending on the results of scientific surveys later this year.

Among the limits on tap, Hundreds of crabbers will be required to set 15 percent fewer crab traps, or pots, than they did last year.

Another 800 watermen who did not catch any crabs between 2004 and 2007 will not be allowed to renew their licenses this season. They instead will be placed on a waiting list.

This winter has been the first time in a century that Virginia watermen have not dredged crabs from the bottom of the Bay. The end of winter dredging is expected to result in millions of more females emerging from muddy hibernation to spawn this spring and summer, Travelstead said.

All the strict rules combined with fragile stocks led the federal government last year to declare the Bay's crab fishery a national disaster - the first time such a finding has been made in Virginia.

Congress approved $20 million in disaster relief to suffering watermen, with Virginia and Maryland splitting the amount.

Maryland received its money last week; Virginia has not, because the state has not submitted a final plan for spending its share.

Travelstead said Monday that the state is expected to submit its proposal to Washington later this week or next and can expect its $10 million aid package two or three weeks after that.

Part of that money will go toward buying out crabbers who agree not to fish again. Travelstead said the details of the program will be ironed out in the coming months.

Virginia historically has caught about 70 percent females, or sooks, and 30 percent males, or jimmies. In Maryland, the ratios are almost exactly the opposite.

Between 2004 and 2007, the average haul of females in Virginia was 15 million pounds. Last year, 9.4 million pounds were taken.

The overall harvest of males and females last year was down too - by 29.5 percent in the Bay and its tidal tributaries and by 27 percent when the seaside portion of Virginia's Eastern Shore is added to the calculus, according to state data.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com