A crab survey released last week is prompting some experts to ask whether Maryland and Virginia procrastinated too long on conservation and left too many gaps in the safety net of regulations designed to protect the fishery from collapse.
Six years ago, worried scientists and officials from both states agreed that action was needed to prevent the bay's last healthy seafood industry from choking on its own excess.
Harvests were bountiful, but scientists believed that the blue crab was feeling the strain of unprecedented growth in fishing gear and in the number of people catching the "beautiful swimmer" for sale or simply for family feasts.
After five years of wrangling and compromise with crabbers -- and after a sobering plunge in harvests in 1992 -- the states finally acted last year to limit, or "cap," commercial crabbing at existing levels.
But the survey, coordinated by the University of Maryland's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, shows that the crab population declined by more than 60 percent during those six years when restrictions were being debated and adopted. Early returns from this winter's survey suggest that the decline is continuing, possibly to the lowest level recorded since the sampling began in the winter of 1988-1989.
"The horse has already left the barn," said William J. Goldsborough, fisheries scientist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
"It's a pretty grim situation right now," he added, "but you can't say it was unpredictable."
John R. Griffin, Maryland's new natural resources secretary, said he would review the final results of this winter's survey of crab abundance. "I'd be inclined -- barring some scientific consensus that there's some things we ought to do immediately -- to hold off, to give the restrictions time to work," said Mr. Griffin, who as deputy secretary last year helped steer an overhaul of commercial fishing licenses through the legislature.
The scientists working on the survey, which involves dredging hibernating crabs from the muddy bottom at about 1,200 sites, caution that the findings from six years of sampling do not reveal whether the population is down because of natural factors or because of overfishing.
Indeed, crabs have a history of roller-coaster harvests, with apparent "crashes" being followed by bumper crops within a year or two. Maryland's harvest went from a dismal 26 million pounds in 1992 to a record 57 million pounds the next year, only to fall again last year to 36 million pounds -- 20 percent below the 10-year average.
Wind, tides, water salinity and a host of other factors determine how many crabs are spawned and survive to reach legal size and be caught in a year or two.
"There's always a trend in crabs, but it's always a short-term trend," said W. P. "Pete" Jensen, Maryland's fisheries director. "We still haven't solved the problem of how low is low and how low is dangerous, and whenever you reach that point, what do you do?" But some experts say there is ample reason to be worried about overfishing now.
"There is a lot of concern throughout the bay, and it's time to act," said Romauld N. Lipcius, a crab researcher at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
He said a scientific summit should be convened to discuss the status of blue crabs and what if anything should be done.
"The population certainly undergoes natural fluctuations," Dr. Lipcius said. "But that can be exacerbated by fishing pressure. When you have a combination of low population and fluctuations, plus intense fishing pressure, plus the possibility of poor environmental conditions, you risk collapse."
A new crab-management plan drafted by fisheries scientists from Maryland and Virginia concludes that crab stocks have been depressed for several years and are likely to remain down )) for the next six to 12 months.
Various surveys, not just the dredge survey, point to "a fishery in the process of being over-harvested," the report says. It is being prepared for adoption by both states, to replace the 1989 plan calling for capping fishing pressure.
Meanwhile, the crab harvest from Virginia's current winter season has been meager, watermen there say.
"It's a scary looking time, I can tell you," said Lonnie Moore, a Tangier Island waterman who has been crabbing for 22 of his 40 years.
Virginians are permitted to harvest crabs in winter, using dredges that haul them from the bottom where they have burrowed to wait for spring. Most of those caught are females, ready to release their fertilized eggs when the water warms up.
But so few crabs have been found, said Mr. Moore, that on a recent fair-weather day, only two of 30 dredge boats based on Tangier bothered to go out.
Watermen say one reason for the crabs' decline is the resurgence of striped bass, or rockfish, which like to feed on tiny juvenile crabs.
But Mr. Moore believes that overfishing is the main problem, and state regulators must share the blame for not curbing it. "What the states have done is nothing but a joke," he said. "It's not affecting the crabber any. It's not helping the resource at all." Others are less critical but share his concern.
L. Eugene Cronin, retired director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, said crab management in the bay is "piecemeal" and has yet to determine a sustainable level of harvest, particularly for egg-bearing females.
Mr. Goldsborough of the bay foundation said the crabbing restrictions adopted by both states were "landmark," particularly caps to be placed on the number of commercial crabbers. But some of the limits on gear are so high that crabbing may actually expand for the next couple of years, Mr. Goldsborough said. And key segments of the fishery remain unrestricted: Virginia has no gear limits on catching hard crabs, and the limits that Maryland set on commercial crab pots and licenses are high enough to allow for some growth. For instance, Maryland's new rules limit watermen to 300 crab pots per licensee, or 900 per boat if a crabber works with two helpers. But a state survey found that the average number of pots watermen use is about 200.
The ceiling the state plans to impose next year on commercial crab licenses also is elastic; there is no predetermined number, and licenses are being granted to all applicants who filed before the deadline last April.
The impact of all the restrictions is unknown, but the stakes are high. Crabs are the most valuable catch coming from the bay; Maryland's 1993 harvest was worth $35 million at dockside.
"This is the last outpost of a healthy fishing economy in the bay," said William Matuszeski, director of the Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay office in Annapolis. "If we lose the crabs, we're losing the backbone of the industry. It's where everyone has gone when other fisheries have failed."