"It's difficult to have the level of reduction of female harvests that we're talking about and not have certain areas more affected than others," Dawson said. "Crabs haven't been getting fixed for the better part of this decade. They just have not come back."
Watermen here disagree. Several say they had their best season in years during 2007, even though the harvest baywide was the smallest in decades. They say that, if the blue crab must be protected, the state should create a deep-water sanctuary from the northernmost part of the bay to the southern edge of Maryland's waters, spreading the pain among all crabbers.
But Dawson said few crabs are caught in the deep water. There's no data to suggest that banning deep-water crabbing would bring back the species, he said.
On the island, where white clapboard homes are set back from one-lane roads, the 500 or so full-time residents worry that the effort to save the crabs will destroy the crabber - and the island.
Powley's family is typical of many here: A third-generation waterman, he grew up helping his father crab. His mother, Gerrie Flowers, came from one of the island's earliest families. When his father died, she took on more hours at the crab-picking factory; in her prime, she could pick a hundred pounds of meat a day.
Powley's brother, Larry "Boo" Powley, once crabbed but now catches bait for crabbers; their sister, Bonnie, runs a soft crab business nearby. Like many island fathers, Thomas and Larry Powley have steered their sons away from water life. Tommy's son is a businessman. Larry's is a chef.
Regulations have already cut into Larry Powley's business. Faced with restrictions on the "good" fish he can catch and sell for human consumption - like rockfish - he has resorted to "scrapfish." He catches shiny mud shad to ship to Louisiana for crayfish bait. The river herring are sent to Japan to lure seals. But his real money comes from fishing for the menhaden that crabbers use to bait traps.
If crabbers shut down for two months, he'll have to shut down, too - and lay off three workers.
"I'm too old to go anywhere or do anything else," Larry Powley said. "It's pretty bad when you see your way of life going down the tubes, and you can't do a thing about it."
About two dozen crab potters remain on the island, each employing one or two helpers. Overall, the island's population has shrunk during the past two decades as young people moved away for mainland jobs. Real estate speculators have torn down old houses and replaced them with brick structures filled with gleaming windows, some of which are vacant or used only part of the year.
