Crab proposals up, and a clarification
Maryland Department Natural Resources has put on its web site the options for restricting the blue crab harvest.
You can check it out here. And if you want to comment to the agency about it, check out the deadline column to find out when it needs to be in.
One clarification I wanted to make to information posted here earlier about historical crab harvests:
Maryland's DNR changed the way it calculated annual crab harvests in 1981. Prior to 1981, it took a selected sample of watermen and asked them for reports, then extrapolated what the harvest was. After 1981, it made reporting requirments mandatory for all watermen. As a result, the numbers before the early 1980s are more estimates, while the ones after a more concrete.
Therefore, when I compared last year's harvest back to the pre-1980 ones, it was a bit of an unfair comparison given the reporting changes. Thanks to crab guru Tom Miller of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science for pointing that out. Next time we run a harvest chart, i'll be sure to make a note of it.
I report on the environment and Chesapeake Bay. A native of West Virginia, I have focused mainly on Maryland's environment since moving here in 1983. Along the way, I've crewed aboard a skipjack in the bay, canoed under city streets up the Jones Fall from the Inner Harbor, and gone deep underground in a western Maryland coal mine. Recently, I have been covering the growth and development transforming the landscape. I love seafood, rambles in the country and good stories. I hope to share some here.
