Virginia votes to lift 15-year prohibition on winter blue crab dredging

BALTIMORE -- A Virginia commission's vote to bring back winter blue crab dredging continued to get blowback Wednesday.

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission voted 5-4 Tuesday morning to repeal the ban. It's been in effect since 2008.

Since then, Maryland state agencies, advocacy organizations, and even local businesses have voiced their opposition to the vote.

Brittney Heise said her family's business, Capt'n Frank's Seafood in Baltimore, has been keeping steady since the price of crabs have stayed steady.

So, she was surprised when she heard about the vote. She feels it'll ruin the market.

"I just feel like that's something that shouldn't be done because we're gonna possibly ruin the next generation [of blue crabs]," Heise said.

The VMRC's vote came even as its own staff opposed the move. However, some board members expressed the need to be inclusive to everyone in the industry.

More than 180 submissions of public comment also opposed repealing the ban, and every person who spoke in the public comment portion before the vote Tuesday asked the commission to vote no.

"I was here when we took it away from them and I've said this before, are we being fair to that user group that we took away from," said VMRC board member Lynn Kellum.

In a press release Wednesday, the VRMC said this will allow the commission to explore the viability of a year-round crab fishery.

The majority of the blue crabs Virginia harvests are female. In the 2024 Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey, adult female crabs went down about 20 million from 2023.

Chris Moore, the Virginia executive director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said this will impact an ongoing stock assessment.

It's a comprehensive study that hasn't been done in around a decade. If this ban goes through, Moore said we could lose out on critical information to keep blue crabs alive in the Chesapeake Bay.

"Throwing this wrench into that process, unfortauntely, really causes lots of concern about what that stock assessment will tell us moving forward," he said.

The VRMC is revisiting the repeal in September to discuss parameters for reopening winter dredging. It could also reverse course on its vote.