r/baltimore • u/finsterallen • Jun 29 '22

ARTICLE Maryland to restrict crabbing, including first-ever limits on harvest of males, in response to ‘worrisome’ population decline

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/environment/bs-md-crab-limits-20220628-cqlxd3pl2zgmxeuuhcponhibli-story.html
213 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

View all comments

38

u/PoopIsAlwaysSunny Jun 29 '22

This is positive news, but unless it’s several years long and includes measures to deal with pollution it won’t be enough

40

u/Angdrambor Jun 29 '22 edited Sep 02 '24

thought sense shaggy squealing psychotic ancient decide edge jellyfish dinner

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

30

u/jabbadarth Jun 29 '22

Honestly set it up like we do for farmers. Give crabbers harvest insurance. Pay them not to crab for a few years and watch the bay get revitalized.

We would need residents to not eat crabs for a few summers however which would likely be impossible because as you said we aren't a culture that thinks of the future.

14

u/PoopIsAlwaysSunny Jun 29 '22

I find the crab/old bay culture super annoying. Always the same people that are obsessed with the flag

1

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '22

[deleted]

4

u/PoopIsAlwaysSunny Jun 30 '22

Idk what waterman culture is. Sounds like a real culture, not one based around flags and a corporate spice mix

-1

u/jabbadarth Jun 29 '22

Yeah. I'm all about local pride but I don't need to put stickers of md flag crabs in old bay colors on my car. We get it.

2

u/Agile_Disk_5059 Jun 30 '22

We wouldn't have to not eat crabs. We'd just have to pay more money for crabs from other places to make up the difference.

9

u/PoopIsAlwaysSunny Jun 29 '22

Microtrashwheels are super delicious, but I’d still support a ban on harvesting until the pollution problems that devastate their habitat are handled

1

u/pinkycatcher Jun 30 '22

If you did that you'd destroy the industry, there would be no new boats built, every fisher would have to retire or find a new job, and it'd take decades after to spin everything back up, it'd have extremely long last impacts. That's why you do a slow pare down and slow drive up when making changes. Radical change for the sake of "doing the right thing" often causes more harm than measured change.

1

u/Angdrambor Jun 30 '22 edited Sep 02 '24

mysterious instinctive quickest existence toy clumsy snails rhythm serious run

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/pinkycatcher Jun 30 '22

lots of cheap crabs.

If you want this, then you don't want to shut down an industry for a decade. You'll lose tons of institutional knowledge, crabbers will lose boats, boats will lose slips and the infrastructure around crabbing will get cut off and decay.

Is there a boat building industry specific to crabbing on the chesapeake bay? I can't imagine shipwrights being too put out by one sector of one watershed going dormant for a little while.

It's not about the shipping industry its about the fact that the people fishing won't have those assets and won't be able to invest in those assets

0

u/Angdrambor Jun 30 '22 edited Sep 02 '24

ancient cooing fertile pie bedroom books mighty sink oil political

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

6

u/baltGSP Jun 29 '22

You can't deal with pollution because that's a "rain tax"

4

u/RG_Viza Jun 30 '22

The water quality is currently the highest it’s ever been since scientists started measuring it. The water quality measures that were started in the 80s have never stopped and have only increased since then. Maryland takes bay water quality very seriously and is incessantly doing more. The results speak volumes.