The Chesapeake's iconic crustacean -- the blue crab -- is in big trouble, with pollution and development contributing to the lowest baywide crab harvests in decades.
The great protein factory that was the Chesapeake Bay is sputtering. The shad, once abundant enough to feed George Washington's army, are struggling to survive. Oysters are at historic lows. There are hardly any sturgeon left. Eels and clams have dwindled.
Could the blue crab be next?
The Chesapeake's iconic crustacean is in big trouble, with pollution and development contributing to the lowest baywide crab harvests in decades. But some scientists say crabs don't have to go the way of almost every other once-productive species in the bay.
They say the lot of the blue crab could be turned around in a few years - even within a political term. "The blue crab presents a grand opportunity for restoration and recovery," said Ann Swanson, director of the multistate Chesapeake Bay Commission. "If you take action this year, you can see results by next year."
After a winter count of hibernating crabs found that the population remains alarmingly low, Maryland and Virginia said last week that they will impose rules to cut by a third the harvest of female crabs.
Several leading scientists say a reduction of that magnitude should yield significant results in reviving the species - if the states issue regulations that are effective.
But there is concern among scientists that the states may not be looking at the right rules.
"The Maryland approach I don't think is very effective at all, to be honest," said Anson "Tuck" Hines, director of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater.
He and others worry that while the state will reduce the harvesting of crabs in certain parts of the bay, watermen will be free to simply step up their crabbing elsewhere. But scientists say the one-third reduction can be achieved if the states commit to it.
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