Sun coverage: Maryland crab industry

February 6, 2009

A shortage of hands

For nearly 20 years, this tiny watermen's village on Hoopers Island has been enlivened each spring by the arrival of several dozen Mexicans - women who bring with them tortillas and tamales, mariachi music and the hands that make the local economy go.

January 29, 2009

Md. officials, watermen differ on crab harvest in '08

Maryland watermen reported catching more blue crabs last year than in 2007, despite new rules to protect the iconic Chesapeake Bay species, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

December 16, 2008

Blue crab catch limitations may continue next year

Maryland plans to limit the blue crab catch again next year in hopes of replenishing the Chesapeake Bay's crustaceans, state officials announced yesterday. But they also said they're tweaking the catch rules in an effort to spread the economic pain more evenly among the state's watermen.

May 3, 2008

Md. asks disaster status for crab

Gov. Martin O'Malley has asked the U.S. commerce secretary to declare the Chesapeake Bay's blue crab fishery a federal disaster, a move officials hope will generate $15 million to create jobs for watermen.

April 20, 2008

Betting on a comeback

Proposed limits on crab harvest spawn debate

May 1, 2006

'Made in USA'

The routine isn't rehearsed, but after hundreds of appearances on the QVC shopping channel over the past decade, Ron and Margie Kauffman know what they'll say when it comes to the millions of Maryland-style crab cakes they sell under the brand Chesapeake Bay Gourmet.

May 1, 2006

A Sun special report: Part two

Working the water

On Smith Island, Donna Smith knows there's only one thing for women like her to do once their men have delivered their catch of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs and the crabs have been steamed and silenced for good.

April 30, 2006

Helping nature

Working in a light drizzle at low tide, Wallop Suwanno clambers from his small boat onto the roof of a wooden tank just offshore, lowers a plastic bucket holding four egg-bearing female crabs and dumps them into the water.

April 30, 2006

A Sun special report: Part one

Crab factory

By 9 a.m. the crab boats have already been coming and going from the pier for close to five hours, with migrant Burmese workers laboring to unload, sort, weigh and steam crabs that are destined for dinner plates on the other side of the world.

November 22, 2005

The Pilgrims Of Palomas: A Sun Follow-Up

Home beckons for crab pickers

FISHING CREEK // Five months after coming to this marshy village on the Chesapeake Bay to take jobs picking crabs in a processing plant, Trinidad Tovar Tovar and a dozen other workers headed home to Mexico yesterday, their luggage bulging with trinkets, souvenirs and new clothes.

September 5, 2005

The Pilgrims of Palomas

Marking season's halfway point

HOOPERS ISLAND - Anyone looking for a fiesta - make that FIESTA! - need search no farther than this narrow strip of marshy waterfront that is the summer home of Mexican women who do the dirty work in Maryland's seafood industry.

August 5, 2005

Crab industry gets back to business

HOOPERS ISLAND - Just a few months ago, Harry Phillips wouldn't have bet a nickel that his crab processing plant would still be in business - much less humming along, turning out mounds of creamy steamed crabmeat.

June 21, 2005

The Pilgrims of Palomas

Picking up where they left off

HOOPERS ISLAND - The nimble fingers of Consuelo Morales, 52, were flying through what looked like mountains of steamed crabs piled high on stainless steel tables.

June 17, 2005

The Pilgrims of Palomas

Change in law allows Mexicans to get visas for Md. jobs

LAREDO, Texas - Benita Tovar Tovar couldn't stop smiling as she stood, finally, in the United States.

May 6, 2005

House passes extension for visas

Emergency legislation allowing foreign workers to return to jobs at crab-picking houses on Maryland's Eastern Shore cleared its last major hurdle yesterday as the House of Representatives easily approved the measure, which supporters slipped into an unrelated military spending bill.

April 23, 2005

Crab pickers turn to House for seasonal-worker visas

KENT NARROWS - Buoyed by a victory in the U.S. Senate this week, Maryland's seafood processors turned their attention yesterday to winning House of Representatives approval for a visa program they say is crucial to the survival of the Chesapeake Bay's signature industry.

April 2, 2005

As crab season approaches, Shore businesses left in limbo

HOOPER'S ISLAND - In the seasonal rhythm of life on this slice of land dangling alongside the Chesapeake Bay, the first days of the commercial crab season are marked by anticipation.

February 27, 2005

The Pilgrims of Palomas

PALOMAS, Mexico - Powdery gray dust clouds rise around her ankles with each footstep, then hang and drift on the breeze as Trinidad Tovar Tovar bustles about the bare dirt yard outside the concrete and cinderblock house she shares with her three grown sons and their families. Nearby, a listless menagerie of chickens, goats, a burro and two scrawny dogs waits for a handout.

January 24, 2005

Work-visa limit snags Shore employers

For the first time in more than a decade, many Maryland businesses are warning that there won't be anyone to pick the crabs, shuck the oysters or trim the hedges.