A new survey shows the number of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay dropped to 227 million, marking the “lowest abundance observed” in more than three decades of tracking the crustaceans.
“It provides the guardrails of how we manage the crab harvest,” said Michael Luisi, acting director of Maryland DNR Fishing and Boating Services, whose division helps in the survey.This year’s survey raised several concerns: The number of juvenile crabs was down at roughly 101 million, marking the “third consecutive year of [a] below average” count; and the number of female crabs that are of spawning age dropped from 158 million crabs in 2021 to 97 million.
Officials at the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, which helped with the survey, said in a statement that adult female crabs are “the key to conservation.” Each female can spawn an average of 3 million eggs per brood and in one year can average up to three broods. Female crabs observed in the survey are predicted to spawn in late May to midsummer, so that contributes to next year’s juvenile population, officials said.
“Climate change could absolutely be a part of it,” Luisi said, noting that for juvenile crabs, climate change could impact the timing of the availability of their food resources, thereby impacting how they grow.“The air, the tides, the winds, the water being warmer or how they’ll find protection in the bay all impact the crab population,” Luisi said.
“Crabs have a pretty short life span of two to three years, so if you have two to three years of low production, it’s setting up a trend that could continue into the future unless something changes,” said Allison Colden, the Maryland senior fisheries scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
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