While blue crab numbers increased from last year, a report encourages resource managers to maintain a “risk-averse” approach to setting regulations in order to promote healthy numbers of the Chesapeake Bay’s blue crabs in the future.
The 2015 Chesapeake Bay Blue Crab Advisory Report was developed by the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee (CBSAC), which includes scientists and representatives from federal and state governments and academic institutions. The report is based on data collected in the Bay-wide winter dredge survey (a cooperative effort of Maryland and Virginia) and on annual estimates of blue crab harvest; it indicates:
Overall, blue crabs are doing fairly well. They are not overfished, and overfishing is not occurring.
The number of female crabs increased in 2015, and the female population is no longer “depleted” as it was were in 2014. There were approximately 101 million female spawning-age crabs in the Chesapeake Bay at the start of the 2015 crabbing season. This is above the established threshold of 70 million, but not as many as the target of 215 million. (In 2014, the number of female crabs was 68.5 million—just below the threshold.)