story by Tom Ventsias

THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS of Maryland had a name for the great body of water that bisects the state: Chesepioc, Native American for "Great Shellfish Bay." This estuary, the Chesapeake Bay, originates from the freshwater Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, reaching southward more than 200 miles before joining the salty brine of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia. Home to dozens of species of marine life that include striped bass, bluefish, eels, mollusks and oysters, the bay is also a prime habitat for the region’s most recognized shellfish, the Chesapeake Bay blue crab.

The blue crab has long provided a food source and a livelihood for Marylanders. Whether it is a third-generation waterman harvesting tens of thousands of the crustaceans each year, or the casual “chicken-necker” snagging a dozen "Jimmies" off a dock on a warm summer day, the catching and eating of blue crabs is a deep-rooted Maryland tradition.

But maintaining this tradition—or guaranteeing the sustainability of the Chesapeake Bay—is a complex issue. "The biggest problem we’re facing is the impact of excessive nutrient runoff into the bay, creating conditions for low oxygen levels," says Doug Lipton, associate professor of agricultural and resource economics and coordinator of the Maryland Sea Grant Extension Program.

Low water clarity in the bay affects submerged sea grasses, which in turn alters the habitat of the blue crab. "It disrupts the bay’s functioning as a healthy ecosystem," Lipton says. Add to this equation the demise of the bay’s native oyster—a natural filter for the bay—as well as chemical runoff from industry, sediment from new homes construction and the population growth in the bay’s watershed, and you have the recipe for some serious problems.

A MURKY SITUATION

The past decade has been particularly precarious for the blue crab population. "We went from several good years in the mid-1990s, when crabs were doing well, to several years where there was a low abundance, yet we were still harvesting a high percentage of the population," Lipton says. "That led to a fear that we were putting that resource in danger—we were harvesting at a rate that we really hadn’t harvested at before."

By the summer of 2000, the situation had reached a critical point, and the state stepped in with new regulations that included increasing the size of a legal crab catch by one-quarter of an inch. Soon thereafter, Lipton was asked by state regulators to look at the costs versus benefits of the new regulations being implemented. "We had already been collecting information for stock assessments of the blue crab," says Lipton. "But this time, we looked in much greater detail at the human impact of the regulations—how these new rules were going to affect the watermen and seafood processors."

Anthropologist Michael Paolisso (right) talks with waterman John van Alstine at the beginning of this year’s crab season in early April.

The motivation for this expanded assessment came from the top down. John Griffin, recently appointed as secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, held the same position under former governor Parris Glendening. Griffin, along with Doug Lipton, attended a meeting with watermen in fall of 2000, where the DNR secretary proposed doing things differently. "I told them that I was willing to temporarily freeze any new regulations on blue crab resources, if we would instead invest this time in looking at a new way of doing business," Griffin recalls. This "new way" meant that watermen, scientists and resource managers would try and work together to better manage the blue crab’s fragile ecosystem.

"WE ALL WORK WITH CRABS..."

In 2003, a University of Maryland social scientist helped to spearhead a Maryland Sea Grant-sponsored collaborative learning project. "We recognized that although there were strong disagreements among blue crab stakeholders concerning some of the science and regulations, there were also some deep-rooted cultural beliefs that everyone did agree upon—and those issues were not being discussed," explains Michael Paolisso, associate professor of anthropology.

What the watermen, scientists and regulators shared at a deeper, cognitive level, Paolisso says, were beliefs and values about the importance of saving the crab, and why.

Paolisso wanted to bring these groups together, and then use anthropological approaches to "dredge up" these implicit, cognitive models about the blue crab fishery and the blue crab population. He began organizing a series of workshops and workplace exchanges—marine scientists would go out on the workboats with the watermen, and watermen would go to the offices or laboratories of the scientists. "They just got to know each other better," Paolisso says.

At the first in a series of workshops held from Annapolis to the lower Eastern Shore, "they locked horns on some crab pot regulations," Paolisso says. The second meeting went better, and by the third meeting, they had stopped talking about stock assessments or specific crab regulations and started talking in earnest to each other on the topic of “work.”

"We were able to identify that everyone here works on crabs—they make their living based on crabs. Some manage them, some study them, and some harvest them, but we all work with crabs,” Paolisso says. “We found common ground, and then worked back up to the points where there was disagreement."

CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION

This new paradigm of better communication has carried over to today. Doug Lipton was recently asked to give a presentation before the Chesapeake Bay Commission concerning the bay's faltering oyster industry. "Oyster restoration and the introduction of a non-native species of oyster into the bay could be one of the most important decisions we make about the Chesapeake Bay for the next 20 years," Lipton says.

Where the University of Maryland has made an impact, Lipton believes, is that the policymakers are now including the human dimension into their discussions from the get-go. "We are showing them the systematic ways we are exploring these cultural issues—using sound scientific principles. That is what has changed in the regulatory process, and it is significant."

In addition to Maryland’s blue crab fisheries, resource economist Doug Lipton is also taking a close look at the state’s oyster industry.

Much of Lipton’s recent research on Maryland’s oyster industry is in trying to determine exactly what the market is today. With the majority of oysters consumed in Maryland being shipped in from out of state, Lipton says the question that needs to be asked is: are we doing oyster restoration for economic reasons for the oyster industry, or are we doing it for ecological reasons?

"In just looking at the numbers, economically, it might not be that great a loss," for Maryland’s oyster industry to fade away and disappear, Lipton says. But if you look at the other aspects—how it impacts the watermen and their families, or how other Marylanders who are non-fishermen value that part of our cultural heritage, then it is quite a significant loss, he says.

SHIFTING TIDES, SHIFTING VALUES

But even that mindset is changing, says Michael Paolisso. The people moving into the state now may not really connect to the bay on the same level as people who grew up here, he says. "They are more urban based, more educated—they tend to practice a form of environmentalism that does not easily accommodate the harvesting of natural resources."

Marylanders raised around the bay still remember what it was like to go down to a crab shanty and get their crabs, Paolisso says. Today, people can order them online and they could be shipped in from out of state overnight. And most locals don’t realize that the "Maryland-style" crab cake they order in a restaurant is most likely made from pasteurized crabmeat imported from Asia or South America.

"I think we are privileged and fortunate to have a blue crab fishery that is still about small boats and individual families going out and harvesting," Paolisso says. "Culturally, that enriches our area."

Paolisso says it is also important to recognize that watermen have a different way of understanding nature. "They have an intense experiential knowledge on the life cycle of the blue crab or other species in the bay, and that is valuable to scientists and the general public."

Paolisso likes to share this anecdote: As he sat one day with a close friend who is a waterman, fishing at sunset in the marshes surrounding Deal Island on the Eastern Shore, his friend turned and said, "Mike, you look at all of this and you see nature in scientific terms … for me, I can't break it down for you that way, but I can tell you this is everything I know." TERP

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