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However, they are usually harvested before they reach that size.
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Blue crabs generally live for 3 or 4 years.The data are examined with respect to the reference points (from the benchmark stock assessment) to determine how the population is doing. It’s the only fisheries survey in the Chesapeake Bay that assesses population Bay-wide on an annual basis. Each year, Maryland and Virginia conduct winter dredge surveys to track blue crab population numbers.An annual Blue Crab Advisory Report (PDF, 31 pages) developed collaboratively by the jurisdictions that manage Chesapeake Bay blue crabs helps decision makers, too. Resource managers use this number as a guide when they set regulations each year. A benchmark stock assessment completed in 2011 generated reference points for the female blue crab population in the Bay. In the Chesapeake Bay, NOAA, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, and Maryland Department of Natural Resources work together to conduct stock assessments.In managing blue crab fisheries, resource managers look at overall trends rather than just the number of blue crabs in any given year. Blue crab populations naturally are highly variable from year to year.For information on visiting, visit the VIMS website at or call 80. The colossal crab will go on display in the VIMS Visitors Center on August 15th. Unfortunately, it was irreparably damaged during mounting, so there can be no claw-to-claw comparison for bragging rights between the two monsters. Horton, who started crabbing in 1951, said his 21-incher was " the biggest old crab" he ever saw. He also airbrushed the claws and shell to their original iridescent shades of blue, red, and beige, and inserted thin wires internally to hold the fragile shell together.Įven with its smaller prosthetic limbs, the mounted crab still measures 22 inches between claw tips, slightly longer than the clawspan reported for the previous "record" blue crab, which was caught by long-time crabber Edwin Horton in the 1980s near where Pagan Creek enters the James River. To restore the crab to its living splendor, Meredith had to fashion a new set of epoxy-resin claws by taking a mold from another (slightly smaller) male crab. These two factors made mounting the crab a serious challenge for Eastern Shore taxidermist Arty Meredith, and help explain the lengthy hiatus between its capture and its upcoming appearance in VIMS' Watermen's Hall Visitors Center and Aquarium. In addition to its disproportionately small claws, the crab had also just molted, so its external skeleton was relatively soft. Crabs possess the useful ability to regenerate lost limbs. That's because it had tiny claws that had just started to re-grow after the crab somehow lost its original pair, "probably in a fight with another male blue crab when it was smaller," says van Montfrans. Juveniles typically molt about 20 times before reaching maturity.ĭespite its impressive width, the crab posed little threat to the McKinney's fingers.
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The first juvenile stage of the blue crab measures about 1/10 of an inch across the spines. "The average width is around 5 1/2 inches," says van Montfrans. The minimum legal width for a male blue crab is 5 inches. The big "jimmy" dwarfs most Chesapeake Bay blue crabs. It weighed 1.1 pounds and had a 10.72-inch-wide shell. McKinney caught the crab on the Virginia side of the Potomac. Willard van Engel, crab experts at VIMS, say it's the largest blue crab they've ever seen or heard about, and may set a Chesapeake Bay and Virginia record.
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When waterman Clarence "Juice" McKinney pulled his crab pot from the frigid waters of the Potomac River in November 1998, he got a big surprise-staring back at him was a male blue crab that stretched almost a foot between the tips of its lateral spines.