Alarm Over Blue Crab Decline

[struggle4progress]

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 16, 2008; Page B01

COLONIAL BEACH, Va., April 15 -- The governors of Virginia and Maryland pledged Tuesday to make a drastic cut in the harvest of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs, citing new data that show the struggling species continues to be heavily overfished.

Appearing on the banks of the Potomac River downstream of Washington, Govs. Timothy M. Kaine (D) and Martin O'Malley (D) said they had instructed state regulators to reduce the amount of female blue crabs caught this year by 34 percent.

Chesapeake watermen have said that kind of cut could make it impossible to stay in the business and devastate bayside villages where the best work is on the water ...

"The price of inaction is greater than the price of action," Virginia's Kaine said, because the watermen would be hurt more if populations of the bay's most famous crustacean were allowed to collapse. "We do not want to wake up in five or 10 years and realize we've lost this very important part of who we are" ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/15/ST2008041502012.html

[opihimoimoi]

1. Managing resources conquers MEism

[soothsayer]

2. quit harvesting the females