Living with the crab

Martin O'Malley and the far-left MD Democrats strike again.

Why doesn't the State employ these crabbers as enforcers of the ban? Who else knows more about the waters or has a stronger incentive to make sure that poachers are kept out? Their responsibilities could even extend to cover polluters and dangerous recreational boaters. They could also collect water and soil samples for scientists. When the crabs come back, they can go back to work.

Wow, the comments here are full of stupidity, just a bunch of endless populist conjecture.

Kudos to Deb for a thoughtful comment. Kudos to the jokers, too, for not trying to sound smarter than they really are.:-)

unfortunately, the crab population is not coming back. The past 6-8 years have shown a downward trend. I do not take females personally but most crabbers do with the majority of them going to picking houses at greatly reduced prices. The fact is this is not as strict as it could be, Virginia has developed similar restrictions most importantly stopping winter dredging, and if no action now no crabs later. I live in Dorchester near Hoopers, I greatly emphasis but for the future this must take place. One last thing, we need higher license rates for out of state crabbers!

I notice all those claiming to know so much do not live on the Shore. The most intelligent comment to date is from Illinois. It would be interested to know how many live in paved suburbia and still apply Miracle Gro on their lawns, sprinkling at 3am to avoid water restrictions. Try to read something besides the picture captions in The Sun before you condemn people.

Most watermen work alone or with a helper who is either related or a neighbor's child. My grandfather and his cousins crabbed with their wives, children and grandchilder as helpers. The immigration issue concerns the packing houses because the local population is not the labor pool it used to be and the packing houses hire immigrant workers.

Harvests show lower amounts of crabs caught each year because there are less and less crabbers working less and less hours due to earlier restrictions. All the while, VA continued to harvest sponge crabs and maintained a very inefficient and wasteful winter dredge harvest where the harvest equipment kills substantial numbers of crabs and leaves them on the bottom.

The main impact on the crab harvest is pollution, leading to the loss of grasses where young crabs hide from predators. Resurging Rockfish have no food, so they have turned to eating crabs as will. Overharvesting by Md watermen is not the cause of the waterman's problem.

By the way, if you could see the sanitary conditions for harvesting crabs in many places overseas, you would not eat the meat.

It is a shame that a "way of life" is coming to an end. But we have to think about a species that will soon be extinct. You can't keep taking and taking and expect to keep taking when they're not having a chance to reproduce. And as for the immigration workers coming back to work? I say no to that. We have people here out of work or collecting public assistance. Force the public assistance recipients to do the job or they loose their public assistance all together.

If it's such a "tradition"
why bring in the migrant workers and not give the jobs to some of the local people?? My mom taught me that any job is better than no job....

I appreciate what the waterman are going through. But there comes a time when they have to cut back too.
I cut back because the cost of crabs are just to high.
2 dz at $55 is amost $2 a crab. I know what the cost will be for Memorial Day Weekend. The one thing I cant accept is if the cost to the buyer continues to go up, how are the waterman making less when the expense is passed on to the consumer. I believe a one year cut back will help the waterman next year and the years to follow.

Megan wrote:

If it's such a "tradition"
why bring in the migrant workers and not give the jobs to some of the local people?? My mom taught me that any job is better than no job....

First of all, thank you to Tony from Baltimore for his compliment to my post, although I am not from Illinois, I am from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I have a satellite internet, and no landline. My location comes from the satellite link.

Now, to the people asking the migrant questions, YOU ARE RIGHT! There are less Americans working in these factories, as they choose to go to college and get great paying desk jobs with wonderful benefits. This is hard work, and if you can be paid a great salary while not having to do manual labor, wouldn't you choose that option also?

In Dorchester County, where this article is based on, there are well over 3,000 unemployed people. These picking factories advertise open positions all the time, but none are taken up by these unemployed persons. The unemployed would much rather sit at home and draw their checks than go out and get an honest job. I'm not lumping all unemployed people into one lazy category, but those are the facts. 3,000 unemployed people in that county, yet they will not pick the crabs.

But that is a completely seperate issue, and a political one at that. Immigration issues are never easy, and always complicated.

Isn't this is like the 3rd article this spring in the Sun about the watermen and the crab restrictions? Maybe they should all go into PR careers. At any rate, its a public resource and they aren't entitled to suck it dry at the expense of the species' future. I thought VA had agreed w/ MD to pass uniform restrictions this year? Obviously should have been done sooner, but then they would've been out of business 10 years ago. Tough times all around, get in line.

The main pollution and runoff is coming from impervious surfuces. Your roof tops, highways, lawns etc... A close second is the oil your cars spill and construction.

O'Malley just made sure all of these harms are intensified - by sucking up to Montgomery County (the ICC), lessoning the critical bay area act, stripping funds for Bay clean up - all the while raising your taxes.

This guy reached his peak in City council and playing in a local band.

Smart Growth, HA?

*Remember Baltimore city has the infrastucture for a million people already, we could use 500,000 more with minimual impact.

In my life I've had to pack it in and find other employment when work dried up and I was let go. What makes these watermen so special that they can't do the same?

I'm sympathetic insofar as I agree that water pollution is a factor but it is not killing the crabs per se - it is harming their environment. Steps can and should be taken to correct this and the State and Feds need to do more, but absent that, harvesting restrictions unfortunately must be stepped up. In my opinion the new restrictions do not go far enough. They should stop harvesting the small crabs. I have to shake my head when I see those tiny little things for sale. Wow they must each contain a whopping quarter-ounce of crab meat. Ban the harvesting of small crabs like that forever. I'm fairly certain we could survive that. One last thing - HEAVY penalties and fines for any scoundrel watermen caught breaking the law. Seize their boats if necessary.

Megan wrote:

If it's such a "tradition"
why bring in the migrant workers and not give the jobs to some of the local people?? My mom taught me that any job is better than no job....

Beacuse no teens from the city want to work for a Summer. Welfare and drug dlinging gets them by.

Now ask, why do we have to import our police, teachers, tech jobs now, and really question when BRAC happens, and all of these jobs pour in? Troubling. MD has jobs that we can't fill.

Andy wrote:

I appreciate what the waterman are going through. But there comes a time when they have to cut back too.
I cut back because the cost of crabs are just to high.
2 dz at $55 is amost $2 a crab. I know what the cost will be for Memorial Day Weekend. The one thing I cant accept is if the cost to the buyer continues to go up, how are the waterman making less when the expense is passed on to the consumer. I believe a one year cut back will help the waterman next year and the years to follow.

It is not the watermen... It is the suburbanites! We have less fishing but more pollution today.

Most likely it is your commute (if you live in the 'burbs), than it is the watermen that is killing the Bay.

Bmore wrote:

Isn't this is like the 3rd article this spring in the Sun about the watermen and the crab restrictions? Maybe they should all go into PR careers. At any rate, its a public resource and they aren't entitled to suck it dry at the expense of the species' future. I thought VA had agreed w/ MD to pass uniform restrictions this year? Obviously should have been done sooner, but then they would've been out of business 10 years ago. Tough times all around, get in line.

You are clearly not from here. This means a lot to some people.

Drew wrote:

<quoted text>
Hey moron I grew up on the bay, I love it very much. However I do see that it has been exploited by peoples greed. namely waterman who dont see the need to stop fishing until its all gone. I cant even come visit the bay now without it making me furious. why the lawyer comment too? Anywy you are nothing less than a concerned douche. Do us all a favor. Go jump off the bay bridge.

The watermen are not really the problem anymore.

Leave the poor little crabs alone for a few years.

Dunn, you have a valid point. But, the pollution can't be reversed overnight. The measures to protect what crabs are left can start immediately. There really wasn't much choice.

Tony wrote:

Resurging Rockfish have no food, so they have turned to eating crabs as will. Overharvesting by Md watermen is not the cause of the waterman's problem.
By the way, if you could see the sanitary conditions for harvesting crabs in many places overseas, you would not eat the meat.

Tony, you don't know what you're talking about. If rockfish were the cause of crab declines, why weren't there record harvests when the rockfish moratorium was in effect?

The salmon industry blames declines on bald eagles and bears. No evidence for this exists there either. Have some idea of trophic ecology before you spout the watermen's false stories.

Zoltan wrote:

<quoted text>
Tony, you don't know what you're talking about. If rockfish were the cause of crab declines, why weren't there record harvests when the rockfish moratorium was in effect?
The salmon industry blames declines on bald eagles and bears. No evidence for this exists there either. Have some idea of trophic ecology before you spout the watermen's false stories.

Just so happen I am a trained fisheries biologist with many years of experience on this issue. I just happen to also be a native resident of the Eastern Shore. The fact is that as the feeder fish population has dwindled, the Rock have adjusted their eating habits accordingly.

In a bushel of #1 crabs, there are approx 4 doz crabs, maybe as many as 4.5 dz (depends on how well you know the source). The Rockfish digests its meal in approximately 24 hours. Therefore, if you catch a Rock and examine its stomach contents, you would see what it has eaten in approximately 24 hours. I have a photo of a 21 inch Rock with its stomach contents disected for examination. THat fish had 52 small crabs in its system which meant it had eaten the equivalent of a bushel in just 24 hours. Some of the crabs were as big as 2+ inches.

I did not say that Rock is the cause, it is just an example of how the pollution in the Bay has changed the ecosystem so that some species have to alter their food choices to survive. That impacts the population of the species a predator chooses to eat.