Blue Crab

Crabbing isn't what it used to be in Anne Arundel. Crabs and watermen have decreased. Maryland tightened its limits on fishing times and catches a few years ago to reverse the blue crab's decline. Are these limits helping? Since the rules went into effect, commercial watermen have harvested greater numbers of the shellfish than they did before the restrictions. And crabbers often are willing to take large numbers of blue crabs at the minimum legal size. How can Maryland and Chesapeake waterman ensure that the blue crab is here to stay?

The soft-shell crab sandwich would join Maryland's roster of state symbols under legislation passed Monday night by the Senate. The 43-1 vote sends the bill to the House of Delegates, where it faces an uncertain fate. The House has generally been less enthusiastic about symbol bills than the upper chamber. According to the Maryland Manual, the state has 23 state symbols, including the blue crab as state crustacean. Since the blue crab in its recently molted form is the key ingredient in the classic soft-shell sandwich, the bill would make the species Callinectes sapidus doubly symbolic.

In historic Ellicott City and St. Michaels, Melissa Fulton ha built a nice business selling items bearing likenesses of the blue crab, the canvasback duck and the Baltimore oriole. But when it comes to her criticisms of the state's attempt to sell more souvenirs to offset tax losses, Ms. Fulton is dealing in red herrings.The owner of two "Celebrate Maryland" shops, Ms. Fulton has been a vocal critic of a move by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. The department recently mailed 134,000 catalogs of souvenirs it sells at state parks.

April 1 is the official start to the blue crab harvest in Maryland. But don't reach for your mallet just yet. "It's not time for crabs," said Jessica Borowski, a manager at Midtown BBQ and Brew. "It's too cold out. " The crabs seem to agree. The Chesapeake Bay's water temperature hasn't risen enough for the crabs to become active - and catchable. Consumers set on Maryland crabs will see limited availability for now - and prices to match. Prices for Chesapeake Bay crabs are typically high at the start of the season, and people who want them in April will have to pay even more than usual.

Earlier this year, the Department of Natural Resources announced several changes in regulations controlling the recreational and commercial harvest of blue crabs in Maryland as part of a long-term management plan for the popular species.Later this month, the DNR will hold public meetings to discuss the research and management strategies that are the basis of the five-year plan.While blue crab populations are not endangered or even threatened at this point, DNR has new regulations in place this year to ensure that crabs are not overfished.

ROSS SIMONS, director of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) near Edgewater, will unveil a traveling environmental education exhibit at a reception this evening at the Lowe House Office Building in Annapolis. "Tales of the Blue Crab" is SERC's first major traveling exhibit and will be made available to grammar schools throughout Maryland. The exhibit illustrates the life cycle of the state's famous crustaceans, showing where they live, how they grow, and other interesting things about the blue crab and how scientists learn about them.

The Chesapeake Bay's blue crab population has apparently stabilized but at such a historically low number that Maryland and Virginia must keep up efforts to limit the annual harvest, according to a study scheduled to be delivered today. The report, from some of the bay's leading crab scientists, warns that "our work to restore the blue crab is far from over" and that pressures to harvest more crabs "risk driving the stock down further, to dangerously low levels." "There is still ongoing reason to be concerned," said Thomas J. Miller, a fisheries ecologist at the University of Maryland's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory and member of the study group "We've got to maintain what I think have been some prudent measures."

Two years ago, Maryland and Virginia agreed to greatly reduce the harvest of female blue crabs to save the declining species — much to the dismay of some watermen. Last year, the controversial plan appeared to be working. This year, the news is even better. Results of the 2009-2010 winter dredge survey show the number of crabs has reached the highest level in more than a decade. Perhaps most importantly, the number of baby crabs in the Chesapeake Bay has nearly doubled from one year ago. That's an extraordinary rebound by any standard.

Something didn't smell quite right about the scene outside the Maryland Court of Appeals in Annapolis yesterday.A mail clerk ran from the building holding a package addressed )) to a judge, set it on the grass and dashed away.Police evacuated the building off Rowe Boulevard. The bomb squad moved in. A $60,000 robot with an electronic arm whirred up, scanned the parcel with its video camera and disarmed it with a blast of water.Then, an officer in body armor ran out to take a look inside the package.

MECHANICSVILLE - Nearly everyone in the social hall of this St. Mary's County firehouse agreed that the Chesapeake Bay blue crab population is in trouble. The question was, what to do about it. And there wasn't much agreement on that. Crack down on recreational crabbers and enforce existing laws, some watermen said. Set commercial catch limits, said recreational crabbers, and ban taking female crabs. The Bi-State Blue Crab Advisory Committee has taken its show on the road, holding public meetings in schools, council chambers and fire halls to seek feedback on proposals to ease the pressure on the bay's most economically important fishery.

Marylanders looking to pile their picnic tables with crabs for one last send-off to summer this Labor Day will likely have to do so with a less-than-jumbo variety of the state's favorite crustacean, thanks to Hurricane Isaac. The storm that tore through Louisiana last week did significant damage to Gulf Coast docks and roads, disrupting a regular supply to Maryland — and elsewhere — of the jumbo and large crabs that, for a variety of reasons, aren't being harvested locally this season.

More crabs to catch and fewer rules by which to catch 'em. That'd be the Holy Grail for Chesapeake watermen. It's why top crabbers in Maryland, from Havre de Grace to Smith Island, have been traveling monthly, for the past 18 months, to long and sometimes contentious meetings with state regulators. Their Blue Crab Design Team is a unique and immensely hopeful development in the long history of harvesting the bay's seafood. I give watermen and Maryland's Department of Natural Resources lots of credit for trying it. The goal is to break with the commercial fisheries management that's been traditional here and other places - regulators trying to make it harder to fish for watermen who in turn try to fish harder.

Is that Maryland crab meat in your crab cake, or is it from parts unknown? Some diners can tell the difference between Maryland and imported crab meat with one bite. Some folks don't care much, but diners who do now have a way of finding restaurants that promise to serve exclusively Maryland crab meat. Launched this spring by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the True Blue program allows restaurants serving DNR-verified Maryland blue crab products to use a special logo in marketing or advertising the product to diners.

Junior sailing TodayJuly 8 . Closing ceremonies at the Junior Olympic Sailing Festival at Annapolis Youth Yacht Club. For information, go to annapolisyc.org/juniorolympics. Trap shooting Sundays , 1 p.m.; Wednesdays , 6 p.m. Carney Rod & Gun Club, 9721 Hilltop Drive. $5 per round. Information: 410-668-1019. 3D fun shoots Mondays through the end of August, 4:30 p.m. to dark. Baltimore Bowmen Summer 3D Fun Shoots. Twenty-eight 3D targets in a wooded setting.

The title of the current group exhibit at the Artists' Gallery, "Buy Local: Art!," is this downtown Columbia gallery's way of reminding you that Howard County artists are happy to sell you their work. It's a timely sales pitch considering that the exhibit coincides with the Columbia Festival of the Arts, whose Lakefest events this weekend will be just yards away. Although the gallery occupies a compact space in an office building lobby, there is a generous display of artwork in various mediums; and within each medium, you can see how individual artists explore themes and techniques.

A new merry-go-round - possibly with Maryland-themed figures such as a blue crab and Baltimore oriole - could be brought in to replace the antique carousel that for a generation entertained children visiting Baltimore's Inner Harbor but was ordered out this year. Baltimore Development Corp.said Friday that it has received two responses to its request for family-friendly proposals at the site, between the Maryland Science Center and Rash Field.M.J. "Jay" Brodie, president of the BDC, said his agency did not specify that it should be a carousel, but both companies proposed one. "It's an attractive proposition to have a new carousel there," said Brodie, who hopes to have it running next spring.

Maryland's fisheries managers are for the first time considering setting daily catch limits for blue crabs as part of a plan to protect the most economically important species in Chesapeake Bay. Eric Schwaab, director of fisheries for the state Department of Natural Resources, floated the idea yesterday at a meeting of the Chesapeake Bay Commission in Annapolis. There is "not a lot of sympathy" for catch limits among watermen, he conceded, but limits would "be particularly valuable in protecting" the female crabs migrating to the mouth of the bay in the fall to spawn.

Buoyed by a remission in the diseases that have ravaged Chesapeake Bay oysters, Maryland watermen enjoyed their biggest harvest in three years during the 5 1/2 -month season that ended last week.Though the oyster harvest tally won't be complete for several weeks, watermen so far have reported catching nearly 132,000 bushels -- more than a 60 percent increase over the record-low catch of the year before, says the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR)."These were the best oysters in five or six years," said Tony Rippons Jr., a resident of Dorchester County who owns Tony's Seafood on U.S. 40 in Catonsville.

Steamed crabs, cream of crab soup, crab cakes, crab imperial, soft shell crab, deviled crab, corn and crab chowder, crab bisque, crab dip, crab salad, crab fritters, crab ravioli, crab pie, crab quiche - but that's probably enough for the first day. Pardon us while we drool at the news that the Chesapeake Bay crab population has rebounded. The annual winter dredge survey has projected an estimated 764 million blue crabs bay-wide, the highest crab population estimate since 1993 and a stunning two-thirds more than last year's total.

In the highest-tech hospital, one of the first things they still do is simply take your pulse. And if I could go back to when theChesapeake Bay'shealth was better and make changes to keep it that way, a lot of them would focus on simply taking the estuary's vital signs. Comprehensive, long-term and well-publicized monitoring of trends in water chemistry, aquatic life and land use throughout the watershed could have saved so much time and argument. It could have saved money by preventing the worst declines and by guiding restoration more efficiently.