The blue crab population in the Chesapeake Bay is down, but the numbers are still in the safe range, a new report finds.
The annual Winter Dredge Survey, from the Chesapeake Bay Program, shows the total number of blue crabs that lived in the bay in 2020 was down 31% from 2019, while the number of adult females is down about 26 percent.
Despite the decrease, the Chesapeake Bay Program said in a statement that the number of adult females “remains above the 70 million threshold, which is considered a sustainable level.” And for the 12th straight year, the number of female blue crabs harvested in 2019 was under the threshold of danger. “The blue crab stock in the Bay is not being depleted or overfished,” the program said.
Overall, the health of the bay “continues to show an ecosystem in recovery from short-term weather impacts and long-term water-quality degradation occurring from excess nutrients and sediment.”
The Dredge Survey collects crabs at 1,500 sampling sites, measures and weighs them, and determines their gender and age.
That information lets them estimate the number of young crabs entering the population, the number of female crabs old enough to spawn, and the total number of harvestable crabs in the bay. And that helps fisheries managers set commercial and recreational harvest limits for the season ahead.
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April 08, 2021 at 10:48PM
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Report: Chesapeake Bay blue crab population down, but not out - WTOP
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