Weather.com posted an article a couple of weeks ago (Nov. 23, 2012) titled, "Va. to Study Effects of Winter Crab Dredging," that caught my attention immediately. I LOVE, and by LOVE, I mean I would drive to places out of my way to get to a store to purchase blue crabs (refer to image above). I actually have a really good recipe for a Hmong-style Blue Crab dish that involves plenty of ginger, garlic, shrimp and crab pastes, and of course, oyster sauce for a wonderful concoction of seafood goodness (we'll stop it there before I am compelled to drive to the cities to get blue crabs). Another reason why the article caught my attention was because as it is written in the title, I was interested in the effects of crab dredging. I do purchase my blue crabs from the cities, but I am not exactly sure where the crabs were dredged. Though I am uncertain whether the ones I purchase come from Virginia, this was an interesting article, nonetheless.
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States and contains huge amounts (though less in recent years due to over-harvesting) of seafoods including blue crabs, oysters, clams, and fish. State regulators have a moratorium on winter dredging for the protection of hibernating females. Doing so will allow the next generation of crabs to be born in the spring.
Virginia is paying for a scientific study starting in December-March to determine how harmful dredging for blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay may be to the ecosystem and crab population. The study will be overseen by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. It will pay four watermen to dredge as many as 40 bushes of crabs a day that they can sell for a profit. Officials and regulators will standby to see how the dredges tear up mud, sand, and underwater grasses. John Bull, a spokesman for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, said, "Everyone has an opinion of the winter dredge fishery, but we need facts, not opinions." Money for the study is coming out of funds paid by watermen for their commercial fishing licenses.
I am curious to see the outcome of this study. I've learned about the Chesapeake Bay from my Conservation of Environment course I took a couple of semesters ago. From what I remember, it's lush aquatic ecosystem has depleted dramatically due to over-harvesting and pollution from urban areas upstream. Because the area is such a hot spot for tourism and seafood production, I hope the study is able to come with a solution to conserve and sustain the bay. It would be very unfortunate to lose such a gem.
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