Saving Seafood

MARYLAND: Eastern Shore seafood companies say potential crab import bans could threaten jobs, supply chains

May 7, 2026 — A coalition of seafood companies including several local businesses filed a federal lawsuit challenging new federal seafood import restrictions that they say could devastate crab processing operations on the Eastern Shore and disrupt the nation’s crab supply chain.

While the companies have been successful in delaying those restrictions, the federal government could reintroduce them this month.

The original lawsuit, acquired by WBOC, was filed in October of 2025 in the United States Court of International Trade by the National Fisheries Institute, Restaurant Law Center, and several seafood importers and processors. Those businesses included Baltimore-based Phillips Foods and Salisbury-based Handy Seafood, Cebu Pacific LLC, and Byrd International Inc.

Read the full article at WBOC

MARYLAND: Can Maryland remain the “crab capital” if consumers can’t buy crabmeat?

May 4, 2026 — Maryland diners love to eat blue crabs, crustaceans native to the Chesapeake Bay that have been a culinary favorite in the region for centuries. But a federal effort to restrict imported crabmeat has sparked a legal fight that could disrupt supply, drive up prices and reshape the seafood industry.

The fight has also exposed a little-known fact to anyone outside of the seafood industry: Almost all “pasteurized” crabmeat purchased in grocery stores and consumed in restaurants in Maryland and beyond is imported from Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and other countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Pasteurized crabmeat refers to crab that has been cooked to a specific temperature to extend its shelf life, allowing it to be shipped long distances and stored for longer periods. It’s typically sold in cans and used in products like crab cakes.

“There’s certainly nowhere near enough domestic Maryland blue crab,” to meet the large and growing demand, said Brice Phillips, an executive at Phillips Seafood, one of Maryland’s best-known seafood businesses and the company that helped popularize Maryland-style crab cakes. The company, founded in 1914, is now in its fourth generation of family ownership.

NORTH CAROLINA: Webinar set on developing new blue crab stock assessment

April 28, 2026 — A webinar is scheduled for late May to share with the public steps in the process to develop a new benchmark blue crab assessment, intended to better understand population dynamics and determine the fishery’s stock status.

The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries is holding the online meeting 6-8 p.m. Thursday, May 28, via WebEx. Register online to join the webinar. There will be a listening station in the division’s office in Morehead City as well.

A 2018 benchmark stock assessment indicates the state’s blue crab stock is overfished, which means that the population size is too small, and overfishing is occurring, which means that the removal rate is too high.

There was a 2023 stock assessment update but division staff and external peer reviewers identified concerns with model specifications and results, so the assessment is not being used for management,” officials said. “However, available data from Division sampling and monitoring programs indicate a continued decline of the Blue Crab stock. The Division has started the process of developing a new benchmark stock assessment.”

Read the full article at CoastalReview.org

NORTH CAROLINA: Fisheries to vote on proposed blue crab harvest rules

November 14, 2025 —  The coastal county lawmakers that formed a new group to support commercial fishing have submitted a resolution opposing more restrictions on the commercial harvest of blue crabs ahead of the Marine Fisheries Commission Nov. 19-20 meeting in Wrightsville Beach.

The Marine Fisheries Commission is expected to consider adopting management strategies developed as part of the adaptative management framework for the Blue Crab Fishery Management Plan Amendment 3.

Those proposed strategies were discussed extensively during the third meeting of the North Carolina Coastal Counties Fisheries Coalition held Nov. 5 in Morehead City, when the members approved the resolution opposing any further restrictions until the 2026 blue crab stock assessment is completed.

Amendment 3 was adopted in 2020 “to end overfishing and achieve sustainable harvest in the blue crab fishery,” Division of Marine Fisheries documents state. The original plan was adopted in December 1998 with the intention to manage the species, and amended in 2004 and again in 2013. The division acts as staff to the commission.

Amendment 3 is nearly halfway through the legislatively mandated 10-year stock rebuilding period “with little evidence suggesting management measures have been successful in ending overfishing or achieving sustainable harvest,” documents continue. The adaptive management framework in the amendment 3 is being “used to implement management measures projected to reduce fishing mortality (F) closer to the F target and rebuild the spawning stock closer to the spawner abundance target with greater than 50% probability of success.”

Current rules include closures Jan. 1-31 north of the Highway 58 bridge in Carteret County and March 1-15 in waters south of the bridge, and a 5-inch minimum size for mature females.

Staff propose starting Jan. 1, in addition to existing closures, prohibiting crab trawling statewide year-round. For waters north of the Emerald Isle bridge, a 30-bushel trip limit would be put in place from September to December, and for south of the bridge, a 15-bushel hard crab trip limit from September to December.

Read the full article at CostalReview.org

Study Challenges Theory Behind N.C. Blue Crab Decline

September 24, 2025 — In a new study, researchers from North Carolina State University compared numbers of juvenile blue crabs across three nursery habitats in Pamlico Sound, both pre- and post-fishery decline, and found that while adult populations declined and have remained low, juvenile populations remained the same during both periods. The work points to a potential population bottleneck for crabs post-nursery but pre-maturity.

The Albemarle-Pamlico Estuarine System (APES) supports the majority of North Carolina’s blue crab population and provides key nursery habitat. Larval blue crabs are released by mature female crabs from narrow inlets along the Outer Banks during the late spring, progressing through several planktonic molts in the Atlantic Ocean before returning to the estuary in the fall through a combination of wind- and storm-driven transport. The newly arrived juvenile crabs settle in near-shore habitats, like seagrass beds and shallow marsh peat habitats, along the eastern and western shores.

“These juveniles hang out in the nurseries until they’re basically big enough to pick a fight and win, then they move into the rest of the estuary,” says Erin Voigt, a Ph.D. candidate at NC State and first author of the study.

Read the full article at NC State University News

NORTH CAROLINA: Blue crabs from North Carolina could be harder to find, too

July 28, 2025 — Fans of Maryland blue crabs have known they have been difficult to find in recent years, and that many of the crabs at fish markets and restaurants are from North Carolina and Louisiana.

Now, North Carolina is considering restrictions that could drop the annual harvest by 21%.

According to the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries, North Carolina has historically provided 22% of the annual blue crabs catch since 1950. In 1996, watermen in North Carolina caught 65 million pounds of blue crab.

Read the full article at WTOP

DELAWARE: Could a blue crab hatchery be coming to Delaware?

April 4, 2025 — Delaware’s blue crab commercial fishery is larger than all the other fisheries in the state combined. If Dan Mills has his way, he’ll be adding to that fishery by building the state’s first blue crab hatchery.

Mills went before the state’s Advisory Council on Shell Fisheries in early March. The demand is high, but the wild stock is dwindling, said Mills, on why he’s looking into the project. The potential for job creation is there too, he said.

Mills went before the council to gauge their interest in the project. For the hatchery to get off the ground, two state laws would have to change – one related to not being allowed to have juvenile crabs in his possession; another related to not being allowed to have sponge crabs, females with eggs, in his possession. Mills suggested the laws could be changed to allow possession if the juvenile crabs are hatched and the sponge crabs are kept in an aquaculture system.

There was some discussion about whether local watermen would want the additional competition, but a general consensus was reached that there are blue crabs coming into Delaware from other states, so a hatchery wouldn’t add much more. In the end, council seemed to have a favorable view on the plan, but it ultimately said Mills would have to get the laws changed, and that would take an act of the General Assembly.

Read the full article at the Cape Gazette

MARYLAND: Maryland loses bid for federal fishery disaster aid

January 8, 2024 — Blue catfish and other nonnative species may be gobbling up blue crabs and wreaking havoc on other Chesapeake Bay fisheries, but that doesn’t qualify for federal disaster assistance.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service has rejected Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s petition asking the agency to declare a federal fishery disaster because of the “explosion” of blue catfish, flathead catfish and northern snakeheads in the Bay.

In the petition submitted in March, Moore said scientists have been seeing “disturbing trends” of declines in crabs, striped bass and five other commercial fish since 2012, when blue catfish began to move into Maryland.

Read the full article at the Bay Journal 

 

VIRGINIA: US state of Virginia could reopen its winter blue crab harvest

October 25, 2023 — The U.S. state of Virginia is reportedly considering whether to reopen its winter blue crab harvest – fifteen years after the fishery was closed.

In 2007, Virginia closed its winter blue crab dredge fishery season for the first time to rebuild the Chesapeake Bay’s crab population. The drop in population was enough that in 2008 the U.S. Department of Commerce declared a commercial fishery disaster for the Chesapeake Bay blue crab fishery – the first time the crab fishery had received such a designation.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NORTH CAROLINA: Abundant elsewhere, NC’s blue crab population dwindles

August 9, 2023 — Bob Dillard’s mind is imprinted with memories of summer days dropping fish-head-baited lines to catch what would usually yield a basketful of blue crabs in Topsail Sound.

“In a matter of 45 minutes, no more than an hour, probably less, you’d fill up the basket with nice crabs,” he said.

The little, soundside cinderblock house his grandparents owned at the south end of Topsail Island has long been gone — torn down and replaced by a much larger, modern beach house.

But Dillard, 76 and a resident of Bolivia in Brunswick County, returns to Topsail Beach each year, renting a house for one week to spend with his children and grandchildren and to fish for blue crabs.

Last month, he rented a house on the sound, a spot perfect for taking a crab pot, he thought.

“I baited it every day and all I caught was fish,” Dillard said. “What I was seeing this year was you were just waiting around and you don’t see any crabs.”

Read the full article at CostalReview.org