But several crabbers urged the VMRC board to consider steps to allow more crabs to be brought ashore. The agency’s industry-dominated Crab Management Advisory Committee had unanimously supported the changes during its May meeting. “I think it was important to create an equitable conservation benefit across all pot categories,” Moore said. VMRC research shows that from 2015–2022, nearly 9 out of 10 commercial outings during the height of the season returned to shore with 75% or less of their bushel limit. So, they set aside the bulk of that number for the largest category of harvesters to help offset the cuts they sustained last year.Ĭhris Moore, a Virginia-based scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said that although the bushel increases could theoretically lead to heavier fishing pressure, the reality is that crabbers usually don’t max out their quotas. This year’s modest boost in the Bay’s crab population in the wintertime survey made it possible for the agency to raise the overall catch limit, officials say. Those licensees account for 13% of the operations but 38% of the catch, Galván said. Last year, the largest harvesters in Virginia saw the biggest bushel cuts. 30 this year and May 16 to July 4 next year. The board made no modifications to the crab season’s peaks of July 5 to Sept. 30 and from March 17 to May 15 next year. Those changes apply only to the “low-bushel” periods from Oct. Except for the smallest class of permit-holders, the rest of the fishery will be allowed to keep an additional bushel per day as well. Under the standards approved at the board’s June 27 meeting, crabbers in the largest permit category will get to increase their daily harvests from 27 to 36 bushels per day. The VMRC sets restrictions based on the size of an operation’s permitted catch size. In Virginia, regulators are offering a bit of relief to harvesters of all categories, but are giving the biggest increases to the largest operations. “So, we are a little concerned about the (overall population) trend of being well below average in the last three years.” “We manage based on trends,” Alexa Galván, a VMRC fishery management planner, told the agency’s board.

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