Chesapeake Bay News

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has announced the elimination of its 9-day female blue-crab harvest closure period that runs from Sept 26-Oct 4 for the 2010 season. The regulation change comes in response to a 60 percent increase in Chesapeake Bay blue crab population estimates.

This short closure to female harvest was implemented in 2009, along with season-long daily catch limits and other closed periods to ensure appropriate harvest levels of female crabs. The elimination of this short fall closure will provide for increased commercial harvest opportunity in the face of the 60 percent increase in crab abundance.

Daily catch limits and the June closure will remain in place, and the fishery will close to female harvest on November 10, as scheduled. The opening of the fall closure in 2010 will not guarantee that these 9 days will remain open in the future.

According to regulators, the Chesapeake Bay’s blue crab population has increased substantially for the second straight year, with the results of the most recent winter dredge survey placing it at its highest level since 1997.

Maryland’s commercial crab harvest is controlled through daily catch limits and closed periods throughout the season. DNR has authority to alter both daily catch limits and closures by public notice, allowing the Department to quickly flex regulations each year to ensure that crab harvest remains proportional to crab abundance.

In Virginia the allowable period for the harvest of female dark sponge crabs is being extended by 14 days.

source: MD DNR press release

The 2010 Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab Advisory Report, while noting that blue crabs appear to be making a comeback in the Chesapeake, recommends that the jurisdictions that manage the fishery keep conservation measures in place.

In early 2010, surveys estimate roughly 315 million harvestable (adult crabs 1+ years old) within the Chesapeake, an impressive 41 percent increase from 2009 numbers. The blue crab population rebuilding goal (200 million harvestable crabs) set by the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee (CBSAC) has been surpassed for two years in a row, but two years is not enough time to know if these numbers can be maintained over the long term.

“The 2010 numbers show continuation of a positive sign that crab populations in the Chesapeake Bay are rebounding,” said Peyton Robertson, director of the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office. “Living resource managers in the bay have made a commitment to working together and to using the best science available to manage blue crab stocks in the bay, and their efforts are paying off.”

Crab populations in the Bay hovered near historic lows for much of the last decade due to over exploitation, pollution, and reduced habitat. But this iconic crustacean is making a comeback—thanks in part to coordinated management efforts across bay jurisdictions in 2008 to reduce female harvest. However, the report notes that conservation measures need to continue to be maintained over time for their full effects to be studied.

The Blue Crab Advisory Report, developed by the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee and reviewed by the Executive Committee of the Sustainable Fisheries Goal Implementation Team, is based primarily on data collected in the 2009-10 bay-wide winter dredge survey, the most comprehensive and statistically robust annual blue crab survey conducted in the bay. The data shows:

* Harvestable blue crabs, those over the age of one year, increased by 41 percent from the 2009 estimate to 315 million. This was primarily due to an increase in abundance of spawning-age females. Since the winter dredge survey began in 1990, the average blue crab population in the bay has been 192 million.

* Bay-wide, numbers of juvenile crabs entering the population doubled from last year’s estimated 179 million juvenile crabs to 345 million. The long-term average is 260 million.

* An estimated 43 percent of crabs were harvested from the bay by commercial and recreational fishers in 2009. The harvest restrictions put in place in 2008 and 2009 have maintained harvest at sustainable levels that appear to have allowed the population of blue crabs to grow.

* The estimated 2009 harvest of blue crabs from the bay and tributaries was 53.9 million pounds—24 percent higher than the record-low 43.5 million pounds in 2007, but well below the long-term average of 74 million pounds.

“The 2010 advisory report contains good news for Chesapeake Bay blue crabs and the associated fisheries,” noted Lynn Fegley of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, current chair of the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee. “The 2009 fishery did not exceed the target removal level and there is an increased abundance of adult and juvenile crabs to start the 2010 season. Going forward, it will be critical for the management jurisdictions to continue management strategies that ensure that exploitation on the spawning component of the stock remains within safe limits.”

The recently released “Strategy for Protection and Restoring the Chesapeake Bay Watershed” affirms NOAA’s support for continued regional blue crab management. Using the latest science, NOAA will continue to work through the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee and coordinate with the states and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission to reevaluate the blue crab interim rebuilding target by 2012. The new abundance target will be based on an updated blue crab stock assessment to be completed in 2011 and will help guide future management actions.

The Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee includes fisheries scientists from the University of Maryland, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, NOAAs Fisheries, and the states of Maryland and Virginia.

The Executive Committee of the Sustainable Fisheries Goal Team is composed of senior fisheries managers from across the Chesapeake Bay and focuses on facilitating fisheries management that encourages sustainable Chesapeake Bay fish populations, supports viable recreational and commercial fisheries, and promotes natural ecosystem function. The Sustainable Fisheries Goal Team provides the forum to discuss fishery management issues that cross state and other jurisdictional boundaries and better connect sound science to management decision making.

The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office focuses NOAA’s capabilities in science, service, and stewardship to protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay.

The Blue Crab Advisory Report and supporting figures are available at:

http://chesapeakebay.noaa.gov/fish-facts/blue-crab

source: NOAA press release

This is a simple recipe for serving fresh Chesapeake Bay Rockfish and blue crab meat.

Ingredients

2 lbs. fresh rockfish fillets (skin on)
1 lb. Chesapeake Bay lump backfin crab meat
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup crab seasoning
1 lemon (juice and pulp only)
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. chopped parsley
1/2 cup diced onion
1/4 cup olive oil

Directions:

1. Line a baking dish with olive oil and place fillets in dish, skin side down.
2. Mix egg, melted butter, mayonnaise, crab seasoning, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, parsley and onion.
3. Blend in crab meat.
4. Spread stuffing over fillets and bake at 400 for 5 minutes, until juices begin to boil.
5. Move to broiler, watch closely, broiling until stuffing begins to brown lightly.

Serving suggestions:

This dish is excellent with fresh local vegetables or rice and a white wine.

On April 14, The governors of Virginia and Maryland announced that the Chesapeake Bay blue crab population has increased for the second year in a row because of a landmark stock rebuilding program.  The latest survey estimates the population has risen to 658 million crabs, a 60 percent increase from last year and the highest seen since 1997.

The population estimate is the result of the 2009-2010 bay-wide winter dredge survey conducted annually by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS).

Speaking about the announcement, Virginia Governor McDonnell remarked, “Protecting and improving the Chesapeake Bay, including the blue crab population, was a priority I outlined during my campaign.  This is shaping up to be a tremendous environmental success story. The crab population is booming. Harvests are up. Our commercial crabbers’ jobs and the waterman’s way of life now appear to be on the path to sustainability.  This is great news for everyone who makes their living by crabbing and for everyone who enjoys genuine Chesapeake Bay crab cakes and she-crab soup.”

Governor McDonnell continued, “While great strides have been made to rebuild our environmentally and economically important crab population, more work remains to be done with our steadfast Maryland partners. Two years does not make a trend.  The scientific evidence shows our management measures are working but we need to continue along this path in order to ensure the Bay’s crab population returns to robustness and remains at that level.  Improving the Bay and the blue crab population will continue to be a priority of mine over the next four years.”

Governor O’Malley also commented, “Today, we can see firsthand what progress looks and feels like on the Chesapeake Bay.  Today, because of the unprecedented partnership between Maryland and Virginia and tough decisions over the past two years, the Chesapeake Bay blue crab population is estimated to be 658 million crabs — a 60 percent increase over last year and the highest total population estimate since 1997.  While we are making progress, our work is not done and we are committed to working with our partners to achieve our ultimate goal of a self-sustaining fishery that will support our industry and recreational fisheries over the long term.”

Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Doug Domenech noted, “Our watermen are due gratitude for their endurance during this stock rebuilding, and for their conservation efforts.  With more crabs in the water, watermen should see bigger harvests with less effort and fewer costs.  The Virginia Marine Resources Commission deserves credit for its steadfast resolve to enact and maintain the regulations necessary to rebuild the crab fishery with our partners in Maryland.”

Rom Lipcius, who directs the Virginia component of the dredge survey for VIMS, said, “The substantial rise in abundance of mature crabs and juveniles was clearly a response of the crab population to unprecedented management actions, such as the closure of the winter dredge fishery, by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and partner agencies.  The increase was neither a random event nor a reflection of improved environmental conditions. From here on, we have to maintain the population at these levels to ensure the long-term sustainability and resilience of the Chesapeake Bay stock.”

The results of the most recent annual winter crab dredge survey indicate 2008 management measures enacted as part of a historic collaboration with Maryland and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission are succeeding but not completed.  Two years ago, that survey estimated the bay-wide blue crab population to be a mere 298 million crabs, prompting a series of coordinated harvest reduction strategies by Virginia, Maryland, and PRFC fishery managers.  Last year, the survey estimated 403 million crabs overwintered in the Chesapeake Bay.

The new survey also shows a baby boom – an almost doubling of the number of juvenile crabs, making it the largest new generation of crabs since 1997 and an encouraging development that wasn’t seen last year.
In 2008, Maryland, Virginia and the PRFC took strong, coordinated action to reduce harvest pressure on female crabs by 34 percent. At that time, scientists from all three jurisdictions deemed conservation measures necessary as blue crab suffered near historic lows in spawning stock.

The 2008 conservation measures resulted in a large increase in the number of adults in the bay during the 2009 spawning season, and this year’s survey confirms that success has carried over into a healthy spawn. Crab reproduction this year was the sixth highest in the 21-year survey. The abundance of both adult female and male crabs also rose again this year, bringing the estimated number of spawning-age crabs to 315 million, well above the interim target level of 200 million.
In seven of the 10 years between 1998 and 2007, the annual removal of blue crabs bay-wide exceeded the “safe” removal level of 53 percent.

Preliminary numbers indicate the 2009 bay-wide harvest was 53 million pounds, the third largest in the past 10 years. Virginia’s harvest last year appears to have increased by more than 30 percent, from 17.3 million to 22.5 million pounds.

Despite the increased harvest, last year’s bay-wide fishery removal rate was approximately 43 percent, which was lower than the 46 percent target established by scientists, who say this is key to maintaining a healthy population.

The bay-wide blue crab winter dredge survey is the primary survey used to assess the condition of the Chesapeake Bay blue crab population. Since 1990, the survey has employed crab dredges to sample blue crabs at 1,500 sites throughout the Chesapeake Bay from December through March. By sampling during winter when blue crabs are buried in the mud and stationary, scientists can develop, with good precision, estimates of the number of crabs present in the bay.

Estimates of abundance are developed separately for young-of-the-year crabs, mature female crabs, and adult male crabs. Together, these groups of crabs will support the 2010 fishery and produce the next generation of crabs.

In 2008, Virginia and Maryland asked the U.S. Department of Commerce to declare the Chesapeake Bay crab fishery a federal disaster due to the historic low blue crab population. Under that designation, $15 million in crab disaster funds from NOAA‘s National Marine Fisheries Service were appropriated for each state to help rescue the crab population and provide needed economic relief to the commercial fishing industry.

Virginia’s crab disaster funds were used to buy back 359 commercial crab licenses in order to reduce actual or potential crab fishing; to employ out-of-work watermen who pulled up 18,000 derelict crab pots over the past two winters; and to train crabbers in shellfish farming.

source: VMRC press release

to Explore New Ways of Managing the Blue Crab Fishery

The Maryland Watermen’s Association (MWA) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) have come together to explore alternative management strategies for the Chesapeake Bay blue crab fishery. This joint commitment, solidified by a formal memorandum of understanding, is intended to improve fishery management and increase benefits to watermen.

This unique partnership comes at a critical time in the lives of Chesapeake Bay watermen and the iconic blue crab population, which has been the foundation of Chesapeake Bay culture, heritage and livelihoods for more than a century. In an unprecedented partnership in 2008 to help rebuild the shared resource, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley worked with then-Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to enact regulations reducing female blue crab harvest.

To mitigate the economic impact on the industry, U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), a steadfast leader in protecting the watermen’s way of life, worked with Governor O’Malley to secure disaster assistance funding in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) budget for the blue crab fishery. That funding supported a DNR-initiative to investigate and assess alternative management approaches, which could improve the situation for commercial crabbers while helping in the overall restoration of the Bay.

“Blue crabs are part of who we are as Marylanders, part of our heritage and part of our culture. And so are the watermen of the Chesapeake Bay. I am committed to the Bay and the lives and livelihoods that depend on it,” said Senator Mikulski, Chairwoman of the Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee that funds NOAA. “When the Maryland’s crab industry dialed 911 during 2008′s Blue Crab disaster, I was on their side fighting for $30 million to provide watermen with work opportunities, while at the same time restoring crab stocks and rebuilding habitats such as oyster reefs. This unique partnership shows Marylanders are looking at the future of the Bay and want a cooperative and coordinated solution for preserving their blue crabs.”

“Maryland’s watermen are ready to lead efforts to protect their livelihood—the Chesapeake blue crab,” says Larry Simns, President of the MWA. “The partnership with EDF is focused on exploring alternative management systems that will protect the heritage of Maryland watermen and the blue crab fishery, and it wouldn’t be possible without the leadership of U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski on behalf of Maryland’s watermen.”

“We’d like to thank Senator Mikulski, the Maryland DNR and the MWA for the opportunity to assist in this effort,” says Tom Grasso, Senior Advisor in the Oceans Program at EDF. “Working together, we believe we can help identify a new economic management structure for the blue crab fishery which will promote a secure and stable livelihood for Maryland’s watermen. This partnership between EDF and MWA is a clear indication of a joint commitment between watermen and environmentalists to being integral partners in an effective solution.”

“We are pleased to support this new partnership between EDF and MWA, which will contribute to our continued efforts to protect and enhance blue crab populations, while also improving economic opportunities for Maryland watermen, our processing industry and the local communities that depend on these jobs,” says DNR Secretary John Griffin.

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission will buy back 359 commercial crab licenses, in a historic action to take more than 75,000 crab pots off the water as part of a multi-year species rebuilding effort.

The licenses will be retired permanently. The removal of 75,441 licensed crab pots represents an almost 20 percent reduction in the number of pots permitted for use in Virginia waters.

“This far surpassed our expectations,’’ said VMRC Commissioner Steven G. Bowman. “This is a great long-term benefit for this environmentally and economically important species.”

The license buyback program closed on Nov. 1. A total of 664 bids were received, in the first ever so-called reverse auction in which crabbers submitted non-negotiable bids and gave the lowest offer they would accept for the purchase of their licenses.

The bids were analyzed and matched to the harvest histories of each bidder. Purchase priority was given for the licenses used most often, and number of pots permitted for each license, in order to reduce the fishing effort in the most cost-efficient manner.

Acceptance letters to the holders of the 359 licenses accepted for the buyback were mailed on Nov. 20. Checks will be written within the next few weeks.

Payments will be made from a pool of $6.7 million appropriated by the federal government as part of a blue crab disaster designation by the National Marine Fisheries Service last year. The VMRC’s license buyback program was enthusiastically approved by NMFS.

License buyback offers were accepted from 59 full-time commercial crabbers, 131 part-time crabbers and 169 crabbers who had not used their licenses since 2004 and were put on a waiting list until the crab population rebounds and stabilizes at high levels for three consecutive years.

Those full-time crabbers held licenses that permitted the use of 14,299 crab pots; 27,733 pots for part-timers; and 33,409 for those on the waiting list.

“It is especially important to ensure the long-term viability of our rebuilding efforts to retire licenses held by those on the waiting list. When the overall crab population returns to abundance, those licenses could significantly undermine the stability of the stock if they were put back in use,’’ said VMRC Fisheries Chief Jack Travelstead. “This is money well spent for the future of this fishery.”

Removing 75,441 crab pots from circulation is a reduction of 18 percent of the 423,000 crab pots that had been licensed for use in Virginia waters.

Retiring 359 crab licenses from the books will leave 1,649 licenses in circulation, including 314 licenses that cannot currently be used because they are on a waiting list. The number of crab licenses issued was capped in 1998.

The bids received varied widely. Full-time crabber bids ranged from $5,000 to $600,000; part-timer bids ranged from $500 to $634,000; and bids from those on the waiting list ranged from $500 to $300,000.

The accepted bids ranged from $500 to $175,000.

Last year, the VMRC and Maryland officials confronted a dangerously low crab population and enacted a bay-wide 34 percent harvest reduction strategy in an effort to rebuild a stock in danger of crashing in the event of a single poor year of reproduction.

At that point, the Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab population had plummeted 70 percent since 1993.

The VMRC banned the winter dredging of crabs last year and this year, shortened the season for harvest of female crabs, required larger escape rings on crab pots, and enacted a waiting list for inactive licenses.

Within a year, the bay-wide adult crab population doubled, according to a scientific crab population survey that has proven over decades to be highly accurate. Results of this winter’s survey will guide the VMRC in future crab management decisions.

“We are stewards of our marine resources and we take our jobs seriously,” said Bowman. “We will do what is necessary.”

As of October 29, 2009, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has purchased and permanently retired more than 530 Limited Crab Catcher (LCC) commercial crabbing licenses through its LCC buy-back program.   To further reduce latent effort (fishing effort that is not currently deployed) the agency is also proposing a change in regulations governing the LCC License.

“With the purchase of more than 530 licenses, the buy-back program is certainly meeting our expectations,” said DNR secretary John Griffin. “However, while retiring these unused licenses is an important component of our efforts to rebuild the Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab population, additional actions are needed to ensure a sustainable fishery.”

The license program, which was launched in July, works on a first-come, first-served basis. With $3 million in Federal disaster funding dedicated to the program, the agency will continue to pay $2,260 per license until the budget is exhausted, or until it has purchased 1,327 — more than one-third — of the 3,676 existing LCC licenses.

“Buying back these licenses is just one step we’re taking to improve the management of the blue crab fishery,” said Fisheries Service Director Tom O’Connell. “We are also looking at ways to improve harvest reporting and working closely with Natural Resources Police to improve enforcement. These actions, along with the Bay wide reduction in female harvest will help maintain a healthy blue crab population in the Chesapeake.”

DNR is proposing new regulations that will require holders of inactive LCC licenses to choose between two options if they do not want to sell back their licenses.  DNR developed these options based on extensive public input on the issue of unused commercial crabbing licenses.

1. An inactive licensee can declare the license frozen until the crab population reaches a target abundance, at which time the Department will develop a process for re-entry into the fishery. These licenses will not be permanently retired, and can be transferred during the time it is temporarily frozen.  There will be no annual renewal fee for these licenses during the temporary freeze.

2. An inactive licensee can declare the LCC license a “male only” license, allowing only the harvest of male crabs.  The licensee will be able to transfer the license only to a family member or leave it to a beneficiary, and the male only license will not revert back to a full license regardless of the abundance of the crab population.

Once a license is declared ‘frozen’ or ‘male only’ the status of the license cannot be changed, even through the transfer process.   Currently an LCC holder may use up to 50 crab pots, trotlines, nets, dip nets, traps, pounds and scrapes to harvest crabs for sale.

Over the past year, Maryland was awarded $15 million in Federal Blue Crab Disaster Funds from NOAA‘s National Marine Fisheries Service, in response to a request from Governors O’Malley and Kaine, and advocacy by the Maryland Congressional Delegation under the leadership of Senator Barbara Mikulski.

Maryland’s Federal Blue Crab Fisheries Disaster Funding is being directed toward work for watermen, addressing latent effort, a quality crab meat assurance program, economic diversification into aquaculture, packaging equipment upgrades for processors, a seafood marketing program for blue crabs and enhanced harvest reporting and enforcement of crabbing restrictions.

Over the past two years, Governor Martin O’Malley worked with Maryland legislators to identify $6 million to fund a work program through which more than 500 watermen have conducted oyster bar rehabilitation activities.

For more information on the buy back program, please visit:  http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/crab/crabindex.html

For more information on the proposed regulation, please visit:

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/regulations/proposedregulations.html

source: MD DNR press release

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has announced that it is revising the Commercial Limited Crab Catcher (LCC) License Buy-Back Program. The agency began the voluntary Buy-Back program in July in an effort to reduce the amount of latent (inactive) effort in Maryland’s commercial blue crab fishery.

The large amount of potential crabbing effort in the Maryland fishery poses a long-term biological and economic threat to the crab population, as an unknown number of inactive licenses may re-enter the fishery in any year. On July 8 the Department sent all (3,676) latent and active LCC license holders a letter offering to permanently buy back licenses through a process called a reverse auction. The reverse auction offered individuals an opportunity to submit a bid to the Department for the amount of money for which they would be willing to permanently relinquish their license.

DNR chose to use a reverse auction approach to help set a fair value for an LCC license. The goal of the Buy-Back Program is to buy and permanently retire 2,000 LCC licenses. The deadline to participate in the initial offer was July 31.

A total of 494 LCC-holders submitted bids to the Department by the deadline. While participation in the auction was less than the Department had hoped, the bids submitted did provide important data to allow DNR to determine a fair value for an LCC license. Based on the limited participation in the first wave, and the Department’s desire to acquire additional LCC licenses in the future, DNR is revising and extending its program offer.

All initial bids will be formally declined. Instead, the Department will immediately offer a fixed price of $2,260 to all LCC holders who may wish to sell their license. DNR used the 494 bids received through the reverse auction to determine a fixed, fair value for an LCC license.

“By establishing a fixed sales price for an LCC license we can now eliminate uncertainty for the license holder,” said DNR Secretary John Griffin. “In addition, we plan to extend this offer to LCC license holders until the funding for this project is exhausted. We feel that this course of action will ultimately get us closer to achieving our goal.”

Each LCC license holder that submitted a bid in July will be receiving a letter from DNR by August 21 with the fair value counteroffer of $2,260, regardless of the value of their original offer. This letter will contain the instructions necessary for a licensee to accept this counteroffer and surrender his/her license to the Department.

In the next few weeks, all additional LCC-holders who did not participate in the reverse auction will receive a similar letter, providing them another opportunity to accept the counter offer.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), through Federal Blue Crab Disaster Funds, is providing funding for the LCC Buy-Back Program. The funding was secured under the leadership of Governor Martin O’Malley, Senator Barbara Mikulski and the Maryland Congressional Delegation in 2008.

While the overall crab population in the Chesapeake Bay rebounded significantly last year, the number of juvenile crabs remained well below the historical average, according to a report published by the NOAA-chaired Fisheries Steering Committee.

“New regulations implemented by the various bay jurisdictions in 2008 seem to be working,” said Peyton Robertson, director of the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office. “The continued improvements in science and their application to management appear to be resulting in a
positive direction for the blue crab in the Chesapeake.”

The 2009 Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab Advisory Report, developed by the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee, is based primarily on data collected in the 2008-09 bay-wide winter dredge survey, the most comprehensive and statistically robust annual blue crab survey
conducted in the bay.

The data shows:

Abundance of blue crabs over the age of one was 223 million, a 70 percent increase from the 2007-08 survey numbers. This was primarily due to an increase in abundance of spawning-age females. Since the winter dredge survey began in 1990, the average blue crab population in the bay has been 186 million.

Bay-wide, numbers of juvenile crabs entering the population did not increase appreciably. There were an estimated 179 million juvenile crabs in the bay—well below the survey’s long-term average of 258 million.

The estimated 2008 harvest of blue crabs from the bay and tributaries was 48.6 million pounds—11 percent higher than the record-low 43.5 million pounds in 2007, but well below the long-term average of 74 million pounds.

Based on these statistics, an estimated 48 percent of crabs were harvested from the bay by commercial and recreational fishers in 2008. That is below the overfishing threshold of 53 percent, but slightly above the target of 46 percent.

“While it is heartening to see numbers rebound, resource managers need to maintain conservation measures until their full effects are known,” Robertson said. “We won’t know the full effectiveness of the new regulations implemented in 2008 until we study results from the next two winter dredge surveys.”

The Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee includes fisheries scientists from the University of Maryland, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, NOAA’s Fisheries Service and the states of Maryland and Virginia. The Fisheries Steering Committee works with the various bay management jurisdictions and is a forum where fisheries management agencies communicate and coordinate decisions across management boundaries.

In an effort toward effective management of Maryland’s blue crab population, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is offering to permanently buy back 3,676 commercial limited crab catcher (LCC) licenses. DNR is implementing this buy-back program in response to public feedback offering solutions for reducing the number of inactive crabbing licenses. The agency mailed letters to all current LCC license holders informing them of this voluntary program, which will use Federal Blue Crab Disaster Funds to reduce latent effort in Maryland’s commercial blue crab fishery. Latent effort is defined as fishing effort that is not currently deployed in the fishery.

To sustainably manage the blue crab fishery, the Bay-wide targeted annual blue crab harvest is limited to removal of 46 percent of the population. Last year, in a coordinated strategy to limit the 2008 harvest to the 46 percent target and to begin rebuilding the depleted crab population, Maryland, Virginia and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission adopted measures to reduce the harvest of the spawning stock of female blue crabs by 34 percent. The most recent winter dredge survey results noted a substantial increase in the adult population over 2008, indicating new management measures are working.

Inactive licenses account for approximately one-third of LCC license holders, making it difficult to adopt management strategies that will ensure the harvest target is met, while allowing full-time active crabbers to make an adequate wage. Having such a large number of people who may or may not crab in any given year poses a long-term biological and economic threat to a rebuilding stock.

“Our concern is if even a fraction of these individuals decide to re-enter the fishery in a given year, our regulations will not be sufficient to maintain the harvest target,” said DNR Secretary John Griffin. “The license buy-back program is our first step to reduce the amount of latent effort in Maryland’s commercial blue crab fishery.”

To address this problem, DNR is offering a commercial limited buy-back program through a reverse auction. The process requires individuals to submit bids to the Department for the amount of money they determine their license to be worth. If an individual chooses to sell his or her license and DNR accepts the bid, the license will be permanently retired. DNR held four open houses in April – targeting commercial crabbers and key legislators — to educate the public on the problem of latent effort and to obtain public input on possible solutions.

The deadline for submitting bids to DNR is July 31, 2009. After receiving all bids, DNR will use the range of bids received to calculate the maximum acceptable bid. Bids under that amount will be accepted from lowest to highest, until the available budget is exhausted. Individuals will be notified of acceptance or rejection of their bid by August 15, 2009, and accepted bidders will receive their payments in early September, 2009.

If inactive license holders choose not to submit a bid, or if DNR does not accept the auction bid, the license will be subject to new regulations that will be proposed in fall 2009. If approved, these regulations will require inactive LCC license holders to choose among several options. These may include: access to a limited, male-only harvest, with the licensing becoming non-transferable; or a temporary freeze of the license until the blue crab population has maintained target abundance, as determined by the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee. An inactive license holder is defined as an individual who has not reported any harvest between April 1, 2004 and December 15, 2008. The deadline to return 2008 reports to the Department was January 2, 2009. Reports received by the Department after January 31, 2009 will not be counted toward an individual’s harvest history.

“Our counterparts in Virginia are also pursuing a license buy-back program this summer using Federal Blue Crab Disaster Funds, and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission is discussing this as well,” said Fisheries Director Tom O’Connell. “Working in close coordination with them, we can continue to do our job of maintaining the Bay’s iconic blue crab fishery so that it will prosper for many generations to come.”

Last year, Maryland and Virginia were each awarded $10 million in Federal Blue Crab Disaster Funds from NOAA‘s National Marine Fisheries Service, in response to a request from Governors O’Malley and Kaine, and advocacy by the Maryland Congressional Delegation under the leadership of Senator Barbara Mikulski. In June, Maryland applied for an additional $5 million in Federal Blue Crab Disaster Funding that became available in May.

Maryland’s Federal Blue Crab Fisheries Disaster Funding is being directed toward work for watermen, addressing latent effort, a quality crab meat assurance program, economic diversification into aquaculture, packaging equipment upgrades for processors, a seafood marketing program for blue crabs and enhanced harvest reporting and enforcement of crabbing restrictions.

In 2008, Governor Martin O’Malley worked with Maryland legislators to identify $3 million to fund a work program through which more than 500 watermen have conducted oyster bar rehabilitation activities. An additional $3 million is included in the State’s FY ’10 budget to continue this important work.

Detailed summaries of open house material, summaries of public comment received and LCC buy back information are available at: www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/crab/crabindex.html