|
|
Blue Crab Chronicles |
| By
Charlie Petrocci |
June 2005 |
Click here to enlarge
Each year a Miss Crustacean is crowned in Crisfield as a reflection of the proud heritage and traditions in the blue crab industry. Photo by Charlie Petrocci.
|
|
Pity the poor blue crab. He scurries along the bottom, trying to hide among long slender sea grasses from myriad predators. He dodges voracious rockfish and croakers while being threatened by gill nets, bank traps, and scrape rigs and tempted by baited hooks, trot lines, and crab pots. Yet with all his adversaries and challenges, his species continues to make its annual pilgrimage up the long passages of the Chesapeake Bay, a celebrated return.
Could any other Delmarva sea creature be invited to more summer seafood feasts than the blue crab? He is the guest of honor at countless backyard bashes, folksy festivals, and restaurant rendezvous. Variously served steamed, fried, broiled, grilled, and sautéed, he is eaten not only in his hard form but in his soft stage of metamorphosis as well.
His assortment of nicknames sounds like a list of cast members from “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”: Jimmy, Sally, Buster, Snot, Peeler, Sook, Rank, Buckram, or Prime, Jumbo, and Whale among others. But regardless of nickname, the blue crab is, in ancient Latin, Callinectes sapidus: the beautiful swimmer.
ECONOMICALLY BOUND
Historically, the blue crab has been an important economic link to the well-being of many coastal and island communities for several generations. His annual presence, and in what numbers, often dictates the cash flow in small waterfront town businesses. Crisfield MD, which proclaims itself the crab capitol of the world, has a strong cultural connection to the species. The town has several seafood celebrations, the boys’ high school basketball team is called the "Crabbers," and its residents ritually crown a Miss Crustacean each year. Happily, there is no record of her forerunners’ being sacrificed if the crab harvests were down.
The web of economic connections is well woven along the waterfront and beyond. At dawn each day, watermen steer boats of wood and fiberglass, burning fuel bought at local pumps, from docks where slips are rented. On board they carry crab pots, line, baits, rigging, and safety gear they have bought. Others may carry trot lines, crab scrapes, or material for bank traps. Watermen purchase fishing licenses, boat insurance, and often their breakfast and lunch. There is constant upkeep on the boats including new paint, rigging, gears, and dry dock fees. Watermen fill the coffee shops, bars, and hardware stores. In some towns, the crabbing industry is the pulse that keeps the towns’ economic blood flowing.
Off the water are those who wait for the boats. They work on the docks, in the packing and picking houses, and in the trucks that carry live, steamed, pasteurized, and prepared products to Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. A few more links down the chain, the restaurant employee waits to assure hungry customers, "Yes, there will be crabs in today."
The demand for blue crabs has grown in the last two decades. New markets have opened up in the West and Midwest. Product forms have evolved with new, value-added items coming on line each year. Meanwhile, the annual harvest of domestic blue crabs has risen and fallen like the tides, often with problematic effect. Crabbers leave the water for other jobs and related supportive businesses are forced to close. And pinching at the heels of the domestic industry are imported crab meat products, which have made great inroads to the belly of the crab connoisseur in America.
It’s a fragile situation for towns to be so dependent on a single species. While oystering and commercial fin fishing also take place in the region, many towns have begun to change due to accelerated housing development. Where crab shanties, oyster houses, and wharfs once stood, towering walls of condominiums now cast long shadows in the afternoon sun. “Our waterfront has been forever changed by condos,” says Tim Howard of Crisfield, once manager of My Maryland Crab Company. “Almost all the crab houses that once lined the docks are gone,” he says, adding, “They will never be back.”
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Blue crabs are one of the few animals harvested and eaten in two stages of their life, when the exoskeleton is hard and also when it is soft. Hard crabs are sold alive for eventual steaming at restaurants, festivals, or family gatherings. Turning bright red when cooked, their shells are torn apart in an almost primitive seasonal rite of passage celebrating summer. They are also sold to picking houses. Since no machine matches the dexterity of the human hand, most crab meat continues to be extracted by manual labor. Once dominated by African American women, the ranks of pickers are increasingly filled by Mexican immigrants. Picking houses tend to come on line near the end of the summer season, when crabs are plentiful, fat, and cheaper. Commonly, crabmeat is graded into lump, backfin, special, or claw. Soft crabs are eaten in their shells -- legs, claws, and all -- with only the eyes, mouthparts, and gills trimmed off. They are a delicacy, usually served broiled, sautéed, or fried.
Like some other shellfish (i.e., shrimp, lobster, other crab species) blue crabs shed their exoskeleton to grow. Crabs can molt 15- 22 times during their four-year life cycle. Spawning for Chesapeake crabs takes place at the mouth of the bay by egg-laden females known as sponge crabs. Tiny hatched crabs are swept out into the ocean and after several molts eventually migrate back into the bay. As they mature, molt, and grow in size, they range from one end of the bay to the other. "Crabs move around quite a bit. They are never abundant in the same place two days in a row, so every day is a new day on the water," said Crisfield waterman Binky Dize.
Blue crabs grow by producing a new soft shell underneath the existing one, then shedding their old hard shell. The newly emerged crab is soft and vulnerable. Everything wants to eat him at that stage. To escape predators, he hides in the sea grasses. If undisturbed he will harden in around eight hours and will have expanded in size by almost 30 per cent. The younger the crab, the more often he will shed.
Females have a terminal molt at maturity, which means that is the last time they will shed. It is during this molt that they mate. While she is still soft, she will seek out a male mate and "double" with him. Cradling her from the top, he protects her until she hardens again. By summer’s end, she will migrate south to the mouth of the bay, carrying her egg mass. She overwinters there, waiting to spawn to start the life cycle over. Those "sponge" females who spawn the following spring then die near the lower bay.
CATCH ‘EM IF YOU CAN
Almost 80 per cent of crabs harvested commercially are caught using baited crab traps known as "pots." They are used for catching both hard crabs and "peelers” (crabs about to shed). Peelers are kept enclosed in circulating water in tanks or floats and watched closely until they shed, when they are plucked out and sold as soft shells. Crabs are also taken by trot lines, bank traps, and crab scrapes. Pots are baited with razor clams, menhaden, or even cow lips. Recreational crabbers use primarily baited lines, collapsible traps, crab pots, and net rings. Chicken necks are common bait. What will crabs eat? Just about anything. They often cannibalize each other and would eat you if they had the chance.
THE END GAME
Catching blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay is big business, with last year’s value at over 25 million dollars for Maryland. Blue crabs have the highest value of any commercial fishery in the Chesapeake. In the last decade their numbers have dropped. On the other hand the amount of crabbers out in the Bay has dropped, too. "But the effort has gone up," says Sea Grant marine economist Doug Lipton, "so more gear is being used by less watermen harvesting relatively fewer animals." This all has implications on price and demand. This is where the argument for imported crab meat has its backers, since they believe the foreign meat takes the sales pressure off domestic product.
As stock has shrunk, more females are being targeted for harvest. In Maryland, over 26 million pounds of crabs were harvested in 2003, down from a high of almost 60 million pounds in 1981. While the overall blue crab harvest has fallen, females now make up almost 40% of that harvest, mainly those targeted as peelers for the soft crab industry.
What does the future hold for the blue crab? That’s a complicated question that watermen, scientists, environmentalists, and politicians struggle with yearly. All roads to the answer point towards conservation. An old waterman once said, "The first day we find out everything there is to know about crabs, will the first day of his last days. You can’t know everything about him. He’s too unpredictable and maybe that’s good." That unpredictability may be what continues to draw watermen out to meet the next day’s sunrise.
CRAB FACTS (Maryland, 2005)
Crab Season - April 1-December 15
Harvest Sizes
Male Hard Crab - 5 1/4 inches / Female - no minimum
Peeler - 3 ½ inches / Soft Crab - 3 ½ inches
Recreation Licenses
Maryland Resident - $5.00
Non-Resident - $10.00
Recreation Crab Boat License - $15.00
Commercial Licenses
Limited Crab Catcher License (LCC): $50; 3,709 permits - trotlines and up to 50 crab pots
Crab Harvester License (CB3): $150; 238 permits - trotlines and up to 300 crab pots
Tidal Fish License (TFL): $300; 2,002 permits - both fish and shellfish; trotlines and up to 300 crab pots |
THE CRAB CONNOISSEUR- do not buy or cook dead crabs
- do not let cooked crabs contact live or dead crabs
- never put cooked crabs back into live bushel basket
- a steamed crab yields about 10% of its weight in picked meat
- one pound of crabmeat equals about 3 cups
- 3 ½ ounces of crabmeat provides 78 calories, 15.9g protein, 1.3 g fat, 102 mg cholesterol, 244 mg potassium, and 337 mg sodium.
- shelf life of steamed crabs or cooked fresh meat is 3-5 days under constant refrigeration.
- frozen crabmeat tends to lose flavor and become watery. However, prepared crabmeat, such as crab cakes or imperial, freezes better.
- store all crabmeat products in an airtight container for best results.
|
Relevant websites :
This URL to Skipjack.net’s revised and updated crab pages includes links to several other resources on the blue crab.
http://skipjack.net/le_shore/crab/index.htm
Charlie Petrocci works as a consultant and lecturer in both fisheries and cultural heritage tourism. He writes for several publications including “National Fisherman,” “Mid-Atlantic Fisherman,” “Field and Stream,” and “Aquaculture Magazine.” He currently resides on Chincoteague Island VA
© University of Maryland Eastern Shore, 2005. All rights reserved.
|
Additional Photos
 |
Click here to enlarge
Blue crabs will get quite large in the Chesapeake Bay, especially in the fall after they have fed all summer long on bay nutrients. Photo by Charlie Petrocci. |
 |
Click here to enlarge
The Tawes Crab and Clambake in Crisfield has been drawing crowds for almost 30 years. Photo by Charlotte Scott. |
 |
Click here to enlarge
If you hang a string off a dock with a chicken neck tied to its end, you may be able to attract and draw up a crab and catch it in a net! Photo by Charlie Petrocci. |
 |
Click here to enlarge
“Peelers”are held in floats, such as these on the Annemessex River in Somerset County, until they shed their hard shells. Photo by Rony Fortin |
Questions or comments regarding
this article should be
addressed to the editor:
Katherine Harting
Room 2133 Richard A. Henson Center
University of Maryland Eastern Shore
Princess Anne, MD 21853
Telephone: 410-651-6084
E-mail: kharting@umes.edu
 Read more articles
|
