8 minute read
Despite crab bounceback, Tangiermen must navigate state regulated waters
SLOWED TO A CRAWL
Commercial crabbing regulations alter age-old lifestyle, strain Tangier economy
Mark Robinsonn Staff Writer
At its peak, 300 boats left Tangier’s harbor each morning rigged for crabbing. A 15 year decline of the Chesapeake Bay’s crab population and the subsequent state restrictions to replenish it have reduced the number of operational vessels to just 60.
n April, Governor Bob Donnell announced in a statement that the Chesapeake Bay’s crab population is at its highest point since 1993. But despite the rebound, Virginia has no plans to relax crabbing regulations that are unpopular among some of the Bay’s remaining watermen.
Four years ago, the Chesapeake Bay’s soft shell blue crab stock hit an all-time low of 249 million crabs, according to a Virginia Marine Resources Commission press release. The federal government declared the Bay a disaster and pumped $15 million of relief funds in to Maryland and Virginia. As a result, the VMRC instituted its stock rebuilding program to revive the Bay’s ailing crab population.
Together, Virginia and Maryland set a goal to reduce the female crab harvest by 34 percent to help the population bounce back. They sought advice from representatives across the crabbing industry – from workers of crab-picking houses, to crab peel potters and hard potters, to marine biologists and crab experts from France, South Africa and Australia.
Their decision?
Virginia’s crabbing season was shortened. Crabbing licenses were bought back. Fisheries were marked off limits. All in the best interest of the Bay, said John Bull, a spokesperson for the Virginia Marine Regulation Commission.
“If we hadn’t intervened when we did… this population could very well have crashed, and nobody would be allowed to catch crabs in the bay for 10 years,” Bull said.
That prospect wouldn’t have sat well with the watermen of Tangier Island, who for centuries have
Ifished the Chesapeake Bay to catch soft shell blue crabs. Despite the success of the state’s rebuilding program, locals view regulations less than favorably and they aren’t shy to speak their mind about why. “More regulations will help the crabs come back,” said Lonnie Moore, a Tangier resident, “But why do you want the crabs if you don’t have the watermen to catch them?” That seems to be the million dollar question on Tangier. The island is in the midst of a culture change, in part because of state regulations on the crabbing industry. Other factors contribute to the island’s economic woes – a shrinking population and few job opportunities for those who remain come to mind – but the consensus opinion blames crabbing regulations for Tangier’s hardship. Moore quit crabbing commercially in 1995; the decreasing crab population played a role in his decision, he admits. The Bay was becoming an increasingly difficult place to make a living, he said, and regulations didn’t make it any easier. Moore believes most crabbers will self-regulate to an extent, but acknowledges that some regulations are needed – most Tangiermen can agree on that. But the extent to which the regulations should rule the water is another discussion completely. “Exactly where that line is, you’ll hear that different from every waterman,” Moore said. “It’s how it’s going to affect their pocketbook.” At its peak, 300 boats left Tangier’s harbor each morning rigged for crabbing. Only 60 still operate, according to Tangier’s mayor James “Ooker” Eskridge. The recent developments are frustrating to Eskridge, who comes from a long line of Tangiermen, Richard Pruitt, who has worked on the waters of the Chesapeake Bay since he was 9 years old, prods through the waters of a holding tank where watermen store their catch until it’s ready for market.
Unused crab pots are stacked on the docks of the crab shanties that line Tangier’s harbor. Different classes of crabbing licenses dictate the number of pots a waterman can have aboard his boat.
A waterman himself, Tangier’s mayor James “Ooker” Eskridge doesn't believe the state considered the Tangier community's heritage when it further regulated commercial crabbing in the Chesapeake Bay in 2008.
CONTINUED FROM p.9 each of whom has made a living crabbing. Neither his lineage, nor the community’s heritage was considered by the state when it made the regulations, the mayor said.
A waterman himself, Eskridge jokingly classifies his peers in two types: “The watermen that look for crabs and the watermen that look for other waterman.” On Tangier, you can classify them a different way now: the watermen with a license and the watermen without one.
In 1999, Virginia put a moratorium on issuing new crabbing licenses to limit the number of watermen who could fish commercially in the Chesapeake Bay. Additionally, the state put a hold on more than 350 crab licenses that hadn’t been used for seven years, according to Bull.
The intent, Bull said, was to protect the waterman who endured the fall of the crab population from “gold rushers” who would take to the waters if the population began to bounce back.
State-sponsored buy-backs of crabbing licenses further limited the number of watermen in the Bay. For $6.7 million, Virginia took 359 commercial crabbing licenses out of circulation in 2009. There are no plans to make those licenses available for potential watermen, Bull said. They have to try their luck on the open market.
Some residents of Tangier, like Andy Langley, believe the state’s intentions are less than nobel.
“Honest guys trying to make a living, keep a house, keep food in their kids’ bellys, keep a roof over their heads, and the state is doing everything they can to push them out,” Langley said of the regulations on watermen.
By design, the state moratorium limits the supply of licenses and drives prices up into the thousands. If a license is not endowed to an individual, it can be nearly impossible to afford.
“When I first moved here, there were kids whose whole purpose in life was to get their own boat, become their own captain,” Langley said. “Now they can’t do that … because of the licenses.”
Off the water, there are few jobs on Tangier for recent high school graduates. The lion’s share join the military, go to college or simply leave the island to look for a job.
Desperate, many find work on tugboats. Their permanent address is still Tangier, but they’re away from the island for two weeks each month. Langley, who works on a tugboat, said even some experi-
GRAPHIC BY YING JUN CHENG
110 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0
96 90 107
77
53 72 69 77
BAY-WIDE COMMERCIAL HARVEST
(millions of pounds)
85
56 62
49 47 50 47 47 58
54
49
43 55 67
TOTAL NUMBER OF CRABS
(in millions)
enced watermen are exploring the option because they can’t afford to keep crabbing. It’s not a move many are happy to make, but there are bills to pay, Langley said.
The trend underscores a culture change on Tangier that affects everyone on the island. Women are now finding ways to supplement their husbands incomes. Some start their own small businesses; others work as teachers at Tangier’s K-12 school. Crabbing used to pay all the bills, but that’s not the case anymore.
Even so, John Bull maintains the state should not be blamed for Tangier’s economic woes. Last year, the crab harvest in Virginia was double what it was four years ago, according to the VMRC website. The dockside value of crabs – which is what the watermen are paid for the crabs they catch – is also twice what it was four years ago, Bull said.
If a waterman catches his limit in a day’s work – 50 bushels – the average payout is about $2,000. Based on the numbers, Bull said watermen can make “no viable argument” that Virginia is overregulating the Bay.
“Since we started this, watermen are making twice as much money commercially than they did just four years ago,” Bull said, “I don’t know why they’re complaining, frankly.”
One of the stipulations of the stock rebuilding program shortened the crab-catching season. It effectively ended winter dredging – the practice of raking the bottom of the Bay to catch crabs while they hibernate. The ban put 57 fisherman out of work for the winter, many of them Tangiermen.
Virginia still allows licensed watermen to fish for oysters in the winter, but it isn’t as lucrative, Eskridge said. Another state-sponsored program during the winter months compensated watermen $300 a day to retrieve stray crab pots from the bottom of the Bay, which they could then keep if they were usable.
Scientists say the crab population still has room for growth – perhaps to double its current mark of 764 million – so many of the restrictions are likely to stay in place in the near future, including winter dredging, Bull said.
A crab population twice the current size would raise a new set of concerns for Tangier’s watermen. The Chesapeake Bay full of crabs, Eskridge reasons, would be just as detrimental to the watermen as a bay without any crabs. An abundant supply would drive the dockside value down, crippling watermen’s pocketbook further, Eskridge said.
VMRC does not consider potential economic concerns when managing any species, including the crab population. Doing so would be “past reckless” and put the Chesapeake Bay at risk, Bull said.
For now, the VMRC philosophy is ‘The more, the better.’ Crabs, that is. R
