Blue Crab Harvest Reporting Efforts
CompletePublished in 2021, this reporting document provides an overview of jurisdictions' efforts to collect blue crab harvest information and challenges to improving reporting accuracy.
Description
The Chesapeake Bay blue crab population is managed by three jurisdictions: the State of Maryland, the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission. The management framework for blue crabs is based on female-specific biological reference points related to abundance and exploitation rate. If the abundance of mature females falls below the management threshold, the population is considered overfished, and if the exploitation rate surpasses the exploitation threshold, overfishing is occurring. To accurately assess the exploitation rate, and consequently the status of the stock, managers require reliable catch information from the commercial and recreational fisheries. Different jurisdictions implement different harvest reporting measures to collect these data.
In the 2020-2021 Blue Crab Logic & Action Plan, Action 1.3 states that the Chesapeake Bay Stock Assessment Committee (CBSAC) will "evaluate current harvest reporting efforts, provide recommendations to jurisdictions and identify barriers to implementation" in order to improve blue crab harvest reporting and characterization of catch composition. The purpose of this document is to address Action 1.3 by recording management jurisdictions' efforts to track blue crab harvest and providing recommendations for improving the accuracy of commercial and recreational landings data.