Blue Crabs see promising increase in Chesapeake Bay, yet challenges loom

BALTIMORE — Good news for crab season: an annual survey by Maryland and Virginia found the blue crab population increase from 2022.

However, the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation is warning to hold off on celebrating -- saying there are still several factors negatively impacting these crabs.

Capt'n Frank's Seafood has been owned by Brittney Heise's family for decades. In the back of their shop, several baskets filled with dozens of blue crabs.

Aside from buying, they also go crabbing themselves. Still, the last few years have been hard for business, especially after last year's low number of crabs in the Chesapeake Bay.

"Business has been okay, but the price is really high. With everything being high, I didn't expect anything less, but we're trucking through," Heise said.

In their 2023 Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and Virginia Institute of Marine Science estimate around 323 million crabs in the bay.

That's up from 227 million crabs in 2022, which was the survey's lowest on record.

While male, female and juvenile blue crab numbers are all up -- the number of juveniles are below average for the fourth year in a row.

That's a point of concern for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

"If we don't have additional juvenile crabs coming along behind the crabs that are currently adults and being harvested, we are reducing the total potential we have in the future to bounce back from these low numbers that we saw," said Allison Colden, CBF's Maryland Executive Director.

Colden also said environmental issues like declining seagrass acreage, as well as invasive species like blue catfish, continue to be problems for blue crabs.

But, the fact there's a slight rebound, it shows somethings are working at least.

"We're hoping that Maryland and Virginia resource managers will take a hard look at exceeding the male conservation benchmark," Colden said. "Also, consider keeping in place, at a minimum, the regulations that were put in last year to try and protect the male segment of the population."

Heise has her fingers crosses that this year prices can go down, even just a little bit.

"Hopefully by the fall we'll have an abundance of crabs," she said.