To try saving the Chesapeake’s blue crab population, Maryland is offering to permanently buy back 3,676 commercial limited crab catcher licenses.
The buy-back is considered crucial to help save the blue crabs, which have declined from an estimated 800 million in 1990 to about 400 million today.
The Department of Natural Resources mailed letters yesterday to all current license holders, informing them of the program, which is voluntary.
Last year, to begin rebuilding the depleted crab numbers, Maryland, Virginia and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission cut the harvest of spawning stock by 34 percent. The winter dredge survey noted a substantial increase in the adult population, indicating the new management measures are working.
DNR says inactive licenses account for about one-third of those holding licenses. That makes it difficult to adopt management strategies to insure the harvest target is met.
“Our concern is if even a fraction of these individuals decide to re-enter the fishery in a given year, our regulations will not be sufficient to maintain the harvest target,” says DNR Secretary John Griffin.
Thus, the license buy-back.
But how much the state is willing to pay for a license is difficult to say.
It’s going to be what’s called a reverse auction. Crabbers are asked to determine for themselves what they think they can sell their license for on the street. They are supposed to write down that amount as a bid. DNR will look at the range of bids and figure the average. Then it will begin accepting bids from the lowest to the highest until the buy-back funds are gone.
“So the market will determine what to pay, not just us setting the price,” says a DNR spokeswoman. “But if somebody asks $10 million for their license, we’re not going to pay that.”
And DNR will not say exactly how much it has on hand to buy out the crabbers. That’s so nobody can divide the amount by the 3,676 licenses being bought and figure out the median price.
The deadline for submitting bids to DNR is July 31. Individuals will be notified of acceptance or rejection of their bid by August 15. Payments will be made in early September.
If inactive crabbers choose not to bid, or if DNR does not accept it, the license will be subject to new regulations taking effect in the fall. License holders will have to choose among several options, which may include a limited male-only harvest, with the license becoming non-transferable, or a temporary freeze of the license until the blue crab population reaches a target abundance.
elaine says
appears that Maryland is targeting the wrong group. the weekend crabbers and the out of state crabbers should be bearing a part of this too!
Gibson says
They certainly seem to be missing a group. On the DNR website, amazingly, the Recreational Crabbing Boat License is the same price for residents and non-residents. It’s easy to imagine that those who hold boat crabbing licenses, versus individual crabbing licenses, are also the ones who tend to have the greatest impact on the recreational harvest. I wonder what motivated the State to have a resident/non-resident price difference at the individual level but not at the boat level. When you add in Marylander taxes related to restoration and management of the Chesapeake, doesn’t it effectively mean that Marylanders (with recreational boat licenses) are actually paying more to catch Maryland crabs than non-residents with the same license? Adding insult-to-injury is the experience of trying to take your kids out crabbing only to be met by a river full of DEs or PAs and having to jockey for shoreline instead of enjoy the sunrise. Even if the recreational harvest numbers are not significant (I don’t know them), the principle of it still has an effect on our sense of stewardship. It seems contradictory to have a price structure that encourages a non-resident recreational crab harvest while we are spending money to limit the commercial harvest.
License info from here:
https://www.dnr.state.md.us/service/fishinfo.asp