The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources is recommending new management strategies for the state’s blue crab fishery, and it's asking for commercial and recreational crabbers’ help to fine-tune the plan.
Data from the SCDNR shows that the state’s blue crab population has seen a sharp decline in the past few decades. In 1978, the state reported nearly 9.4 million pounds of crab landings, compared to 2.6 million in 2021.
South Carolina’s crabbing industry is significantly under-regulated compared to other East Coast states, according to the Natural Resources Department. Many crabbers say that under-regulation is partially to blame for the decadeslong slide.
The SCDNR this year presented a list of nine recommendations to the S.C. Legislature to create a more sustainable blue crab fishery and mitigate further population declines. Now the department is asking for crabbers’ help in figuring out how to apply those new rules — and how they need to be tweaked to ensure they don’t negatively impact the industry.
In addition to one held in Charleston on Sept. 27, the SCDNR will host two other public hearings on the blue crab management plan. The next one will be held at the Port Royal Sound Foundation Maritime Center in Okatie on Oct. 4 at 6:30 p.m. The final hearing will be at Murrells Inlet, but the department has not announced a date, time or location for that hearing.
‘A recipe for disaster’
It isn’t just a relaxed regulatory approach that’s hurting the state’s blue crabs. Jeff Brunson is in charge of crustacean management at the SCDNR’s Office of Fisheries Management. He said warmer falls and winters have caused earlier and shorter spawning seasons.
“We know that environmental factors can have a huge impact on blue crab populations,” Brunson said at the Sept. 27 public hearing on the proposed management changes. “In South Carolina especially, blue crab numbers tend to be higher in the cooler and wetter years, but the climate has shifted to being warmer and dryer fairly recently.”
Terrea Braden, who owns Braden Seafood in Beaufort, said she’s also noticed a significant increase in salinity recently — another side effect of a changing climate and warming seas.
“The salinity this past year was the highest salinity I have ever seen in 27 years,” she said. “It’s a big difference. The crabs are going to go where they want to be.”
As crab landings have declined in recent years, the value of each crab has increased. The SCDNR reports that the wholesale value of landings increased sixfold from 1972 to 2021, following an almost perfect inverse relationship to the total landing size in South Carolina.
David Whitaker, who spent nearly four decades working at the SCDNR and helped guide many of its earlier blue crab-management strategies, called that a “recipe for disaster.”
“As environmental factors resulted in lower crab stocks, catch rates in the fishery declined, resulting in reduced supply which ultimately caused prices to peak,” said Whitaker, who is retired. “These higher prices allow crabbers to fish at profitable levels while the resource continues to get less and less abundant.”
Several crabbers at the Wednesday meeting said blue crabs’ surging value and South Carolina’s relaxed approach to regulation draws in out-of-state fishermen, pressuring an already stressed system.
To operate a commercial crabbing operation in South Carolina, in-state crabbers pay a rate of $25 for their first 50 traps, and $1 for each additional trap. Out-of-state commercial crabbers can also apply for licenses for $125 for their first 50 traps and $5 for each additional trap.
“That needs to be so much more,” said Carolyn Ganis, a recreational crabber who runs four traps with her husband. “If you’re taking our resources, you need to pay for our resources.”
That sentiment spurred a round of applause from the other crabbers at Wednesday's hearing.
