Crab Season Opens In Virginia

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Virginia watermen begin their Chesapeake Bay blue crab harvest Tuesday with the prospect of a bountiful catch at a time when the sweet delicacy may be too pricey for cost-conscious consumers.

The rich harvest is the expected result of sharply reduced catch limits enacted by Maryland and Virginia and the end of the winter dredge season in Virginia.

The measures are intended to increase stocks of the bay's signature catch, and watermen and regulators said they would produce the intended results when the season opens. The economy, however, tempered any enthusiasm among watermen for the opening and loaded crab pots.

"Who can afford to buy crabs in this economy?" asked Ken Smith, president of the Virginia Watermen's Association. "Supply and demand," he said. "If you can't sell your product you're not going to crab."

Crab stocks are estimated to have declined 70 percent in the Chesapeake since the early 1990s because of overfishing and pollution, which harms crabs as well as the underwater grasses they need to thrive. Last year, the U.S. Commerce Department declared the crab fishery a federal disaster.

Virginia and Maryland are splitting $20 million in disaster aid approved by Congress.

The decline of the bay's crab and oyster stocks could be measured by membership in Smith's association. The association represents approximately 2,800 watermen in Virginia, perhaps one-third of the number that worked the bay 25 years ago. About 700 are active crabbers.

"There were so many crab pots, you could walk across the bay on them," Smith said. "When I was a kid, you ate a bushel of crabs every Saturday. Now crabbers can't afford to eat them."

Most of the crabs pulled from Virginia's portion of the bay will be processed by Graham & Rollins Inc. in Hampton, where Mexican workers on temporary visas will handpick crabs for market.

Speaking from the International Boston Seafood Show, Graham & Rollins president John B. Graham said the economy is a concern but he said a Chesapeake Bay crab resonates with discerning buyers.

"There's a certain percentage of the population that want it, and they'll pay the price, within reason," he said.

Mike Hutt, executive director of the Virginia Marine Products Board, was at the same show with Graham. He's attempting to market as a food source Chesapeake rays, which gobble up oysters at an alarming rate. Bay oysters are also at historic lows.

While Hutt said the consensus at the Boston show was the seafood sales were off, he said the origin of Virginia's crabs insulates the industry to some degree.

"It's a good marketing tool," he said. "No other crab can compare to the taste profile of a Chesapeake Bay blue crab. It's a delicate, sweet taste, to me."

Besides ending the winter dredge, a century-old practice that scooped up hibernating pregnant crabs, Virginia also instituted other measures to help restore the bay's crab population. They including a reduction in the number of pots a waterman can put out and the creation of a sanctuary in the middle of the bay.

A spokesman for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission said the commission can't let the market dictate its primary mission.

"Our job is to conserve the crab species," said John M.R. Bull. "We don't have any say on the price of gas, we don't have a say over whether the market will pay for a bushel of crabs."

The Virginia season is tentatively scheduled to end in November.