Blue Crab

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.

A decision to reduce Chesapeake Bay crab harvests by 15 percent may be helping to reverse the decline in the adult crabs population, scientists reported yesterday. The report to the Bi-State Blue Crab Advisory Committee found "a very modest uptick" in female crabs and crabs larger than 2 inches, said Phil Jones, chief of fisheries resource management at Maryland's Department of Natural Resources. Ironically, the good news came on the day the committee disbanded because of budget cuts.

Last week the Department of Natural Resources issued news release to announce two public hearings on "the reproposal of the blue crab regulations" for unlicensed and licensed noncommercial crabbers.And the first paragraph of the release brought great expectations, especially in its last sentence, which read:"These changes are being reproposed based on significant public comment from hearings held by DNR in October proposing changes to Maryland's blue crab regulations."The trouble is that the reproposals do not deal at all with the blue crab regulations that will most restrict the recreational crabber.

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.

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 MYSTERIOUS ways of the Chesapeake blue crab continue to puzzle scientists and policy-makers, watermen and consumers. But there's no mistaking the marketplace: Maryland catches are at record lows for the first half of the eight-month season, and prices are sky high. This fundamental Chesapeake fishery may not yet be overfished or at the crisis stage, technically. But the consensus of indicators is that the crab population is close to the precipice, not just in Maryland but also in Virginia.

When Joe's Crab Shack opens its third Md. location Monday in Abingdon, the first 100 patrons served will get a voucher for free Snow Crab Bucket every month for a year. Joe's Crab Shack, which specializes in steam pots, seafood entrees and crab dishes, is owned by the Houston-based Ignite Restaurant Group. Wait, a Texas-based crab chain spreading across the Chesapeake. Coals to Newcastle, right?  Not really. Joe's Crab Shack does have blue crab on the menu but is better known for its Dungeness crabs and especially the cold-water crustaceans known variously as snow, king and queen crabs.

Over the past decade, Maryland's commercial watermen, our families and communities have slowly but steadily been reaching a turning point in our lives. With a polluted Chesapeake Bay, uncertain seafood stocks, rising costs of doing business and unpredictable fisheries management, commercial watermen around the state are facing a critical choice about the future. We can choose to follow the path we are on, filled with instability and insecurity, or we can choose a road of sustainability and promise.

It's a great time to be a jimmy in the Chesapeake Bay - if you're a blue crab looking for a good time.  There are nearly three times as many female crabs as there are males now, thanks to catch limits imposed by Maryland and Virginia to protect more "sooks" from harvest. Those catch limits, which included banning winter crabbing in Virginia and shortening the season in Maryland, are widely credited with fueling a dramatic rebound in the population of the iconic crustacean, which only four years ago was believed to be dangerously close to crashing because of overharvesting.

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.