Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources announced on Wednesday that recreational crabbers in the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries, including the Maryland tributaries of the Potomac River, will once again face catch and possession limits this summer. The rules take effect on April 1 at 12:01 a.m. and run through June 30.
Unlicensed boats will be permitted to have up to 24 male crabs if there is only one unlicensed person aboard, 48 male crabs with two or more unlicensed people aboard, and 1 bushel of male crabs with at least one licensee and any number of unlicensed people aboard. If the boat is licensed, it can have one bushel of male crabs with any number of licensed or unlicensed people.
Professional crabbers will face different limits. The decision to introduce these limits follows the Chesapeake Bay’s lowest-ever recorded crab count of 227 million crabs, with adult male crabs accounting for just 12% of the total.
These totals were calculated in the 2022 Baywide Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey. Although the oyster count is improving, blue crabs are declining, with pollution continuing to harm the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, which received a D+ health grade in 2022 from a key group.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which aims to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay, has called for action to address the ongoing problem. “Far too much pollution still reaches our waterways. As our State of the Blueprint report outlined last fall, states are not on track to reduce pollution fast enough to improve and sustain water quality over the long term,” wrote Hilary Harp Falk, President and CEO of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
The Department of Natural Resources will set the recreational crab catch and possession limits for July through December after the 2023 survey is available.
