Delmarva Today 6-3-22

One of the great pleasures of living in the Chesapeake Bay area is “chicken necking” for blue crabs on a lazy summer afternoon and later sharing the savory bounty with good friends. Unfortunately, what used to be an abundance of crabs is dwindling to a trickle. To discuss the startling erosion of the blue crab population in the Chesapeake Bay, Harold Wilson’s guest is former Senator Gerald Winegrad. Gerald lives in Annapolis and represented the greater Annapolis area in the state’s General Assembly for 16 years. He is a recreational crabber and an avid and knowledgeable advocate for the restoration of the Bay. He currently writes a commentary on environmental issues affecting the Bay for the Sunday Capital in Annapolis. According to Gerald in his opinion piece in last week’s Sunday Capital, the number of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay declined to 227 million this winter. Perhaps that number doesn’t mean very much until you realize that this is the lowest figure ever recorded and is less than-one third of the crab population of 30 years ago.