ANNAPOLIS – In a move to sidestep the Department of Natural Resources’ authority, the Eastern Shore delegation successfully tacked on an amendment to a bill easing a controversial size limit on male hard crabs.
The House of Delegates approved, 135-1, the floor amendment and the bill last Friday.
The amendment, attached to a crab scrape bill, is intended to alleviate stricter crabbing regulations and is not aimed at taking away DNR’s regulatory powers, proponents say.
The bill also would prohibit the use of crab scrapes in certain areas of the Chesapeake Bay. The proposal is now before the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee.
Finalized earlier this month, the stricter crabbing regulations are designed to slow the decline of the blue crab population in the Chesapeake Bay.
DNR calls for increasing the minimum male crab size from 5 inches to 5- and-a-quarter inches beginning Aug. 1.
Beginning next year, the 5-and-a-quarter-inch size limit on male hard crabs would be imposed throughout the extended season from April 1 to Dec. 15.
However, the amendment would allow Maryland watermen to catch 5-inch male hard crabs from April 1 to July 31 after this year. The quarter- inch increase would begin Aug. 1 for the following crabbing seasons.
“It’ll be of some help but not an answer to the overall problem of getting enough crabs,” said Bill Sieling of the Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association Tuesday.
The department, which is reviewing the amendment, has serious reservations, said spokeswoman Heather Lynch.
In announcing its regulations earlier this month, DNR Secretary J. Charles Fox said the state’s new efforts would decrease crab harvests and double the number of crabs spawning in the Chesapeake Bay.
In 2000, Maryland, Virginia and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission agreed to a 15 percent reduction in harvest efforts over a three-year period.
Virginia has not imposed the 5-and-a-quarter-inch size limit on male hard crabs, creating a competitive edge for the commonwealth.
The tougher crabbing restrictions in Maryland would result in a 15.1 percent reduction this year and 17.6 percent reduction in 2003, enabling the state to meeting its goal a year early.
DNR does not expect to impose additional regulations next year.
Maryland would not forego its commitment by allowing the 5-inch male crabs in future crabbing seasons, said Delegate Kenneth Schisler, R-Talbot.
The amendment still allows Maryland to meet its 15 percent reduction commitment, Schisler said, and not an effort to bypass DNR’s authority.
“It’s a give-and-take process,” Schisler said.
Adding the amendment to the crab scrapes bill was the “right thing to do,” said Delegate Wheeler Baker, D-Queen Anne’s, the bill’s lead sponsor.
“By allowing the amendment,” he said, “it was a vote for my people.”
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