Blue Crab

Judges and officials shoulder the blame for loss of justiceThe Supreme Court and the Maryland Court of Appeals have left earth and have wandered into deep space ("Supreme Court rejects appeal by Md. in child sex abuse case," Jan. 12).It is absurd for the Court of Appeals to overturn Johnny Walker's conviction because his "constitutional rights" were violated when his relatives were kept out of court during testimony by girls ages 12 and 17.The Supreme Court has blessed the absurdity with its inaction.

Pupils at Hillsmere Elementary School feasted on crabs yesterday -- not in the cafeteria with mallets, but intellectually in the classroom.The Annapolis school was the first stop for a new traveling exhibit devoted to the blue crabs of the Chesapeake.Created by scientists and educators from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater, "Tales of the Blue Crab" is designed to teach children about the bay's most celebrated inhabitant and introduce them to environmental science.

Bill was so good campaigning in Macedonia, he ought to run for senator in New York himself.Don't tell the justices, but the doctrine of state sovereignty makes no economic or political sense in the 21st century.Firing teachers only improves the schools when they are replaced by better teachers.The guy vote is so split, Baltimore's next mayor is probably Mary W. Conaway.Forget about the vanishing oyster, blue crab and shad. Our bay is the world's richest stinging jellyfish habitat.Pub Date: 6/25/99

MTA scoresRAVENS FANS and the Mass Transit Administration deserve credit for listening to each other.The MTA heard the loud, angry cries of football spectators who complained bitterly about a near-breakdown in light-rail service before and after the first preseason game. The agency responded smartly by providing more park-and-ride buses.Fans heeded the good advice of transit officials, just as they had heeded the bad advice of the MTA for the earlier game.As a result, transit riders reached the Camden Yards area smoothly last Saturday night -- and on time for the kickoff and early Ravens scores.

Lewis Eugene Cronin, considered one of the pre-eminent bay scientists of this century and a blue crab expert who had studied the species since the 1950s, died of heart failure Friday at his home in Annapolis. The retired director of the University of Maryland's environmental research laboratories was 81."He developed the framework for much of the action that's taken place in the cleanup of the Chesapeake through good science [and] good communication," said Don Baugh, vice president of education for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

THE CHESAPEAKE BAY blue crab lost a lifelong friend last week, as did all creatures of the estuary, great and small.L. Eugene Cronin, a pioneer in bay research and pre-eminent student of the enigmatic crustacean, died at age 81. Until recent weeks, he had been busily editing a series of scientific papers on the Callinectes sapidus, or blue crab, for a definitive 'u encyclopedia of the bay's signature shellfish."

Editor's note: Tom Horton paddles into unusual waters, the well-known but imaginary channels created by writer Helen Chappell.LAST WEEK, I paddled my kayak into a creek where the charts showed no creek existed. Night was coming on, and though it was clear and starry ahead, an odd fog blotted everything astern, pushing me ever deeper into the Dorchester marshes.No town existed in these parts, but around a bend, I came upon a fishing village. I glided silently past a dock where two shadowy figures were deep in conversation:"Think on this, Huddie," said the one called Junie:"If an infinite number of rednecks, driving an infinite number of pickup trucks, fires an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of road signs -- would they eventually reproduce all the world's great literature in Braille?"

The 30 youths from Newark, N.J., were labeled "at risk" by organizers because they come from areas of frequent crime, poverty and unemployment.Did the adults get it all wrong? Some might have wondered for a moment or two. What's riskier for a city kid than standing on the leaning deck of a moving sailboat, sleeping on the ground in a Howard County tepee or examining a blue crab -- all for the first time?Yet as Marven Madden, 12, scrambled eggs for his buddies in the warm galley of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Roger B. Taney in the Inner Harbor last week, he seemed to speak for his fellow students/guests of Baltimore's Living Classrooms Foundation this week:"Oh, I'm having fun," he said, turning the eggs.

I SHOOK A CRAB in Portland, Ore. That is how the residents of the Pacific Northwest handle their Dungeness crabs. They "shake" them, a process that involves separating the crab's body into pieces, then pounding the shell of each piece against the edge of a bowl with straight sides.When this procedure is performed correctly, the crab meat easily falls from the shell into the bottom of the bowl. That is what happened when Pansy Bray, a resident of Hoquiam, Wash., and a former fish-house worker, shook a crab.

Move over black-eyed Susan and white oak. Make room for a real state plant: horsemint.The herb with the pointy green leaves and pale yellow blossoms smells like thyme and once was a major ingredient of Listerine. Now it's the cause celebre of the Maryland Herb Association, which wants to make it a state symbol."It's got a royal air to it. It's striking and different," said Francesca Hedrick, the association's president.The herbalists tried this year to persuade state lawmakers to make Maryland the second state to adopt a state herb.

My Chesapeake Bay crab boycott continues in 2009. I have neither purchased nor accepted a live blue crab from a roadside vendor or neighborhood chicken-necker since June 1999. I have neither cooked nor consumed crab meat from Mencken's great protein factory - at least knowingly - since the crab population appeared to be in collapse. I again implore my fellow Marylanders to do the same. And it is well past time for the governors of Virginia and Maryland to declare a moratorium on the harvest.

With the harvest of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs at a record low and the hardships facing watermen, it hardly seems unreasonable to require all those who catch crabs to have a license. At minimum, Maryland ought to know how many crabs are taken out of the bay, whether that's by commercial or recreational crabbers. A license is the best vehicle to help collect that crucial data as it allows researchers to more accurately survey crab catches. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources is considering this modest step: Require those who crab from their waterfront property, with hand-lines from land or a few traps from a boat to be licensed.

Between the protests of watermen over new harvest restrictions and the high cost of a dozen steamed jimmies at a restaurant table, most Marylanders are well aware of the decline of the treasured Chesapeake Bay blue crab. But the decision by the U.S. commerce secretary to declare the fishery a commercial failure this week can only serve to underscore this unsettling reality. What will it mean for watermen? Some may soon be eligible for financial assistance from the federal government - if Congress appropriates the money to pay for it. That should mean a greater investment in such alternative employment as shellfish aquaculture projects and rebuilding the bay's oyster beds.

Tolls help recoup the cost of driving Before citizens get up in arms over the potential $200 per week cost of new high-occupancy toll lanes (HOT), it's important to remember that driving is not a cost-less transaction ("Driven away?" Sept. 7). From wear and tear on the roads and damage to the environment to added sprawl and added consumption of finite resources, the cost to the world of highway driving is much greater than the cost of a gallon of gas. HOT lanes help people to understand the true cost of driving.

Picture a steamed crab encrusted with Old Bay seasoning, an ear of Silver Queen corn, a cold Natty Boh served with a handful of Utz potato chips - and a hot summer night in Baltimore leaps to mind. Step back, though, and the relationship between food and place becomes less fixed. Today, the crabs may come from Thailand, the "Silver Queen" is probably a more durable variety with a less-resonant name, and National Bohemian, once the Baltimore Orioles' "official" beer, now is brewed in North Carolina.

Eight years ago, a chance question at a Maryland General Assembly hearing put Yonathan Zohar on a path to unlocking the secrets of the Chesapeake Bay blue crab. The Jerusalem-born, Paris-educated endocrinologist answered questions about techniques he used at his Inner Harbor lab to enhance the breeding stock of certain fish. Today, Zohar is using the same techniques to help reinvigorate the once-robust crustacean. He and his team have spent more than $12 million - most of it courtesy of a federal earmark from Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski - mapping out the blue crab's life cycle in their hatchery and placing the crabs in the bay to watch how they lived.

I think it's great that the governor of Maryland and our two U.S. senators want the feds to declare the Chesapeake Bay crab fishery a disaster. But before we get all gooey about how politicians really care about the bay, crabs, the watermen and their way of life, let's ask a question: What took so long? And one more question: Why still a limited harvest and not a full-blown moratorium? Politicians at all levels suffer from homopechephobia. (You don't have to look it up. It's a term from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society; it refers to fear of fishermen, or the fishing industry lobby.

The Chesapeake Bay has long been a source of inspiration to great writers. James A. Michener, John Barth, Tom Horton, Gilbert Byron. But if we had to choose one book to explain the bay's culture and ecology to a newcomer it would probably be William W. Warner's Beautiful Swimmers. Mr. Warner died last month at 88 from complications of Alzheimer's disease, a sad event for the many readers who cherish his seminal work. The winner of the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, Beautiful Swimmers was not only a wonderfully detailed examination of the life of the Atlantic blue crab but of the watermen who harvest them and the communities where they live.

Nearly 100 watermen attended a meeting in Annapolis last night to hear state officials' proposals for restricting Maryland's blue crab harvest in hopes of protecting the increasingly struggling crustacean. The options on the table include bushel limits for crabs, restrictions on the soft-crab fishery and a maximum size limit on females. Lynn Fegley, the Department of Natural Resources' blue crab expert, said the department is hoping to have a draft proposal ready in two weeks and will introduce the regulations in mid-April.

When it comes to crabs, I am provincial. Because I reside in Maryland, home of the blue crab, I have a hard time working up interest in "outsider" crabs, the ones that hail from beyond the Chesapeake Bay region. Life is good here, I tell myself; why look beyond the borders for pleasure? Yet, recently, I found myself enjoying the company of strangers - crabs from Alaska, Florida and Oregon. I did this during eating adventures in two Baltimore restaurants, the Oceanaire Seafood Room in Harbor East and McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant at Pier 5 in the Inner Harbor.