The Baltimore Sun
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Crab fishery must close
Virginia given order after defying quota on horseshoes; Effective Oct. 23; Sanctuary proposed in federal waters off Delaware Bay

By Joel McCord
Sun Staff
October 13, 2000

The U.S. commerce secretary ordered Virginia yesterday to close its horseshoe crab fishery after the state failed to heed repeated warnings to set stricter limits on its catch.

The population of horseshoe crabs, an ancient species that spawns on Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean beaches, has been declining for at least seven years, according to surveys in several states.

As reports of the dwindling population spread, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey slashed their harvests by 75 percent. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted 14-1 in February to cut harvests by 25 percent. But Virginia, the lone vote against the cuts, has defied the decision, arguing that it was based on faulty science and that the cuts would ruin its conch fishery.

Horseshoe crabs, which predate dinosaurs by 100 million years, provide food for migrating shorebirds, bait for a burgeoning eel-and-conch fishery and blood for pharmaceutical tests.

Conservationists, who have been lobbying Commerce Secretary Norman Y. Mineta to move against Virginia, said yesterday they were pleased by the order, as well as by the secretary's formal proposal for a horseshoe crab sanctuary in federal waters off Delaware Bay, also announced yesterday.

Daniel P. Beard, senior vice president of the National Audubon Society, called the moves "vital first steps for the protection of horseshoe crabs."

But Virginians were outraged.

"We're going to have to get an injunction so we can have a fall harvest of conches," said Rick Robins of Chesapeake Bay Packing, a seafood processor in Newport News.

He said the conch fishery represents about 18 percent of his business, "but for the average fisherman, that's 100 percent of his business."

The fisheries commission set a quota of 152,495 crabs for next year. Virginia declared its own quota of 710,000, then halved that in July, but that didn't satisfy the commission.

Mineta, under pressure from the governors of Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey, threatened in August to close Virginia's horseshoe crab fishery if the state continued to ignore the quotas "already agreed on by 14 other states."

Yesterday, he said he had "no choice but to impose a moratorium on Virginia."

The moratorium goes into effect Oct. 23, which will give "fishermen time to comply ... and the federal government time to prepare for enforcement," said Penelope D. Dalton, assistant administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

John Paul Woodley, Virginia's secretary of natural resources, was conciliatory yesterday, although he did not rule out the possibility of going to court to challenge the moratorium.

"A court challenge is among our options, but I hope we don't have to mount one," he said. "The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission meets Tuesday in Florida, and we'll have the opportunity to reach a compromise to allow us to come into compliance."

Virginia has twice proposed a system of transferable quotas in which one state would be allowed to use the unused portion of another state's quota.

The motion died for lack of a second at the commission's June meeting and was referred to a study committee in August. But the committee is "not in a position to touch the Virginia proposal" because members worry that it would lead to overfishing in one area of the coast, said Dieter Busch, director of the commission's interstate fisheries management program.

"If you give Virginia 100,000 crabs from New Jersey or Rhode Island, it could deplete the local stocks," he said.

A horseshoe crab sanctuary within 30 miles of the mouth of Delaware Bay was part of the commission's plans adopted in February to preserve the creatures.

In May, Delaware Gov. Thomas R. Carper pressed then-Commerce Secretary William B. Daley to establish the sanctuary quickly after he heard reports that Virginia watermen were taking horseshoe crabs within the 30-mile zone.

The sanctuary, which will take effect Oct. 31, would comprise approximately 1,500 square miles of federal waters from south of Peck's Beach, N.J., to just north of Ocean City, Md., and 30 miles into the ocean. The area was chosen because it has the largest horseshoe crab population on the East Coast.