October 22, 2013 — It's been a horrible year for Chesapeake Bay blue crabs, which plunged to less than half their overall population in the past year, and the state is set to decide Tuesday what to do about it.
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission is expected to vote in a public hearing at its offices in Newport News on whether to reopen the winter dredge season for blue crab, close it for the sixth year in a row to help the stock rebuild, or allow dredging with strict limits and oversight.
"If it is reopened, it will not be anything like what it used to look like," VMRC spokesman John Bull said Monday. "This plan would have tight controls."
But environmentalists say tight controls aren't enough to help salvage the bay's dwindling supply of its iconic blue crabs.
Stock surveys conducted by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and others indicate the overall abundance of blue crabs dropped from 765 million last year to about 300 million this year, said Chris Moore, Hampton Roads senior scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. As a result, commercial watermen saw a "very poor" harvest this year.
The current blue crab population is only slightly better than the 298 million recorded in 2008, which was deemed a federal disaster and prompted alarmed officials in Virginia and Maryland to partner in a science-based stock management plan. Virginia began banning winter dredging that year.
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