Blue Crabs On Tap For “Save The Bay Breakfast”

“Managing Blue Crabs into the Future” will be the topic for the next “Save the Bay Breakfast” Saturday, Feb. 24, 2001, at Sandy Bottom Nature Park in Hampton.

The public is invited to join the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), sponsor of the monthly breakfasts, for coffee and bagels at 8:30 a.m., followed by a presentation from 9-10 a.m. by a panel of blue crab experts discussing future management of crabs in the Bay.

Harvests of blue crabs, the last remaining major commercial fishery in the Chesapeake Bay, have been declining for much of the past decade, with the size and population of reproductive-age female crabs down some 70 percent since the early 1990s. Bay scientists have concluded excessive fishing pressures now threaten the long-term sustainability of blue crabs, and both Virginia and Maryland are considering measures to reduce catches by 15 percent. Achieving a more sustainable crab fishery will be the topic for discussion at the Feb. 24 breakfast. Panelists will include Dr. Rob Brumbaugh, CBF fisheries scientist; Jack Travelstead, chief of marine fisheries for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission; Johnny Graham, vice president of Graham and Rollins Inc., a Hampton crab processing business; and Pete Freeman, waterman and past appointee to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.

The breakfast and presentation are free (a small donation for food is suggested). For more information, contact Christy Mills at 757-622-1964 or e-mail cmills@savethebay.cbf.org.

Directions to Sandy Bottom Nature Park in Hampton: Take Interstate-64 to Exit 261A. Take Hampton Roads Center Parkway to Big Bethel Road and turn right. Soon after that turn, look for the park entrance on the left.



Posted: 2-8-2001