Maryland officials and environmentalists are railing against a Virginia decision that could reopen a long-closed segment of that state’s blue crab fishery.

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission voted 5-4 to repeal a prohibition on a winter dredge fishery for blue crabs, a ban that’s been in place for about 15 years. As a result, staff members at the commission will explore reestablishing a winter fishery for the species.

Historically, the winter season allowed watermen at the mouth of the Chesapeake to dredge the bay bottom, scooping up semi-dormant crabs buried beneath the mud for warmth during the coldest months of the year. The practice was halted in the 2000s as the crab population faltered.

In a statement, Maryland Department of Natural Resources Secretary Josh Kurtz said Virginia’s decision was ill-advised and poorly timed.

“A decision of this magnitude should have only been made with the support of scientists, in close consultation with Maryland officials, and in response to a significant increase in the blue crab population,” Kurtz wrote.

“It’s a bad day if you care about blue crabs.”

The latest blue crab survey from this winter found blue crab abundance held fairly steady in the Chesapeake Bay relative to 2023, but the number was still below average. Continued low numbers of juvenile crabs have prompted concern, and the number of female crabs in the bay this winter (estimated at 133 million) was below a target of 196 million crabs.

Staff members of the Virginia commission recommended against reopening the winter season. In a presentation, they highlighted that during the 1998–1999 winter dredge harvest in Virginia, harvesters removed about 32% of the total female crabs estimated to be in the Bay when the season began. About 96% of the crabs caught during that winter season were female.

Maintaining the stock of female crabs is considered critical to the species’ longevity, and much of the fishing regulations focus on protecting them. The first-ever bushel limits for male crabs came in 2022, after worrisome survey results for the species. The 2022 survey estimated the lowest number of blue crabs in the Chesapeake in any one year since the effort began in 1990.

Environmental groups opposed to the winter season, including the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, argue that although the crab numbers have rebounded since then, the population remains too shaky to give more leeway to harvesters.

Zach Widgeon, a spokesman for the commission, called its decision “very preliminary,” since it does not actually establish the winter fishery, adding that it isn’t time to sound any alarms.

The vote allows commission staff to explore the viability of a winter fishery that could begin as soon as this winter, if approved. At the commission’s next meeting in September, the staff members will present their findings, Widgeon said.

It’s very likely that, if a winter fishery is reestablished, it will differ from the winter seasons 15 years ago, Widgeon said. Historically, the dredge season ran from Dec. 1 to March 31, but it could be shorter this time around. Some stakeholders have suggested a January-February season, Widgeon said, to help sustain crab-picking houses during the winter.

“This is not the winter dredge that it was in 2008,” Widgeon said.

It’s also likely that a dredge season will include fewer participants, meaning it would not remove as many crabs as the 1998 season, Widgeon said.

“While this historical data is useful in evaluating the full scale of effort during the historical winter dredge fishery, current viability will be determined using current data and harvest targets in line with bay-wide management goals,” Widgeon wrote in an email.

Even so, the prospect of reopening the winter dredge harvest for blue crabs has attracted concern. Of the 186 individuals and groups that shared comments with the commission about the idea, all 186 were against it.

In 2008, when the Chesapeake Bay blue crab came under a federal fishery disaster declaration due to dire population numbers, Virginia’s winter dredge fishery was seen as “one of the biggest culprits” to remove to help the species recover, said Allison Colden, Maryland executive director of the bay foundation, which also released a statement condemning Virginia’s decision.

Reinstating the season now, with the blue crab stock unsteady again, seems like a poor decision, Colden said.

“Based on all the information we had going into today’s meeting, it was entirely expected and logical that this would not move forward, considering all of the recommendations and sentiments against it,” Colden said.

The decision is also poorly timed, argued Kurtz in his statement, because officials are beginning a comprehensive stock assessment for the blue crab. It will explore the reasons for lower-than-hoped juvenile and female numbers, and evaluate new environmental stressors such as warming waters and ravenous invasive blue catfish.

“The success of the species’ recovery after a steep decline in the 2000s can be directly traced to Maryland and Virginia cooperatively managing blue crabs, especially females, based on science,” Kurtz wrote.

2024 Baltimore Sun. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

SALEM, Va. (WFXR) — It is a happy homecoming for Roanoke native and current assistant Virginia Tech women’s basketball coach Jen Hoover.

Hoover, a William Byrd grad and Wake Forest head coach, has made her way back to the area and to the ACC. She is now working alongside new head coach Megan Duffy. This opportunity Hoover says is one that’s an incredible honor and couldn’t be more happy to be home.

“A chance to come back to home, but to come back to the ACC and come back to a program such a rich and tradition and with a fan base that is just so excited about women’s basketball. Our players, we’ve been out with our players a couple of times in the last month and every time we go somewhere people are taking pictures or asking for an autograph, mostly pictures. And you know, they talk whether it’s students or whether it’s older people in the community, younger people in the community. And you just don’t have that a lot of places. I’ve been a lot of really amazing places and programs, and this is by far the first time I’ve experienced that and that special. And so we’re excited to kind of build something and get everyone on board and just make it, you know, take it to another level,” said Hoover.

Both Hoover and Duffy bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to the Virginia Tech women’s basketball program.

HAMPTON ROADS, Va. (WAVY) — While Hampton Roads got some much-needed rain Monday, it hasn’t been enough for farmers, including one who says it has been adversely affecting his crops.

Vaughn Farms Produce has been in business in the Pungo community of Virginia Beach since the 1800s, and current owner Robert Vaughn said the drought has been affecting his crops for months.

“We might have had two-tenths of an inch of rain,” Vaughn said. “If you accumulate that on top of the heat, then you’ve got serious problems.”

Running 300 acres of farmland has been an uphill battle for Vaughn and his wife, as their most popular produce — strawberries and soybeans — have been impacted. But he said growing corn and pumpkins has been the greatest challenge.

“It’s no more than four or five feet tall that … tassel, and that’s when it needs the majority of the water and it’s not getting it,” Vaughn said. “There are going to be crop failures down here this year and [it’s] something we haven’t seen in eight or 10 years. It’s been a dust bowl. I don’t dare plant the seed because it’s not going to come up.”

He said the best solution is using irrigations systems, “but against the heat, it’s still not enough hydration for the crops,” he said. “Farming is kind of a gamble. We always laughed at farmers who say it would be less painful just to go to Las Vegas and roll it on on dice or so. But here we go, months and months trying to figure out what Mother Nature is going to give us.”

Despite the heat wearing and tearing on the crops, Vaughn Produce Farms will remain open until late August and then reopen in September for pumpkin season.