I was raised in crab country with an Eastern Shore mindset. Summer days were spent on my grandfather’s back porch at a table adorned with crab paper covered in Old-Bay, blue crabs and sweating cans of Natty Boh. This family scene is common for this part of the country where the blue crab is as essential to the culture as breathing. These traditions and many of their purveyors migrate one-hundred or so miles each spring and summer south-east across the Bay Bridge to the Delaware-Maryland beaches. Drive up and down the main road connecting the coastal towns that line the beaches and you will see dozens and dozens of self-professed ‘crab houses’.

The summer of 2016 I got my first real, non-babysitting, job at one of these crab houses; that summer the blue crab population of the Chesapeake Bay continued to decrease at an alarming rate. Between 2016 and 2017, the number of juvenile crabs in the Chesapeake Bay decreased at a startling rate of 54 percent as people continued to pour into Ocean City, Maryland paying for crabs by the dozen or ‘All You-Can Eat’ steamed crab specials. A silver warmer of hot butter sat glistening on the back-porch counter of the kitchen where bushels of crabs took boiling water baths in forty-gallon silver tubs. The creaky screened porch door whined every morning as crabbers parked their trucks out back and wheeled stacks of faded wooden bushel baskets filled with writhing blue inmates into the industrial size kitchen fridge. Fighting the urge to sneeze on this porch was half of my job as the ‘steamers’ piled trays high with steaming red crabs coated in spice and added a few extra tablespoons of Old Bay on the tray before they were sent out.

The first summer I worked at the crab house, our ‘steamers’ were Bob and Rob; a pair of students attending the University of Texas. Bob was the voice for the two while Rob was tall and shy. I didn’t realize either of them were Nepalese for the first week we worked together. Foreign students who either study in America or come from their native countries to the eastern shore, as well as foreign non-student workers, are common in the crabbing industry. They commonly work in kitchens, on ‘steam porches’ and in factories as ‘pickers,’ picking blue crabs to supply supermarkets and crab houses of the eastern shore with pre-picked crab meat.

In 2018 the Presidential administration awarded visas for crab picking in a lottery system instead of on a first-come, first served basis. Many restaurants and supermarkets failed to obtain visas for their foreign workforce reducing the number of seafood industry foreign employees by as much as 40 percent. As a result, only about half of the Eastern Shore’s crab picking establishments were able to obtain enough visas for their workers. This lack of crab pickers has had a direct effect on the profits of the Maryland seafood industry decreasing the industry’s profits by over 60-percent, jeopardizing not only the seafood culture of the Eastern Shore, but the economics of the area; the seafood industry of the area is worth $355 million.

Finding enough foreign workers to fill these roles will not be an issue going forward, however, if there are no blue crabs to pick. When I returned to working at the same restaurant the next summer crab prices had increased significantly, not only where I was working, but up and down Coastal Highway all the way down to the ocean city inlet. When customers asked where our crabs came from the answer was usually, “Louisiana.” That fall I started my junior year of college at the University of Delaware after transferring from a school in the landlocked state of Colorado. I also became a marine science major. The first paper I wrote was about the health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed and its critical role in protecting the future of blue crab population on the Eastern Shore. Five-hundred million pounds of seafood are harvested annually from the Chesapeake Bay although that number has decreased as the natural habitat of the bay began to degrade. Endemic species such as the Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica), blue crab (Callinectes sapidus), and striped bass (Morone saxatilis) that depend on the underwater grasses of the bay to protect their young, began to disappear.

The waters of the Chesapeake have become opaque and filled with dead zones, areas characterized by an absence of oxygen. One of the main challenges facing the health of the bay is pollution from states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed such as Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Over a quarter of the land in the watershed is used for agriculture which causes significant pollution from surface run-off in the form of excess nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. The excess of nutrients in the bay leads to harmful algal blooms (HABs) which create toxins and cause a depletion of oxygen in the water as microbes process the post-bloom decay. Each year the Chesapeake Bay is given a grade for each aspect of its health, similar to a grade school report card. In 2018 the Chesapeake Bay received a ‘C’ for overall health, however, the health score declined from 54 percent in 2017 to 46 percent that year. There was an overall decrease in nitrogen and phosphorus levels in the water but, unfortunately, there were also less benthic organisms, animals that live in the sediments of the bay that are critical to the health of the ecosystem.

The latest blow the Chesapeake Bay and blue crab have taken are recent steps the White House has taken to repeal the “Waters of the United States” regulation. The current administration has sought to repeal the regulation, which was put in place to provide environmental protections for streams as well as wetlands and groundwater. They have also taken steps to weaken almost one-hundred other laws put in place to protect the environment by preventing climate change, increasing clean air and water, and protecting endangered species by limiting chemical pollution, and oil and coal mining. As the health of the Chesapeake Bay and the blue crab population becomes more stable these laws, especially those preventing limitations on the types and amounts of pollutants allowed in water, could have devastating effects.

In last decade the commercial crab fishery industry faced the challenge of maintaining their profitability as the industry began to decline. As the profitability of the crabbing industry decreased fisheries began to utilize unsustainable harvesting practices; they began to overfish the crab population in order to compensate for diminished value. These unsustainable practices made a significant dent in the crab population at the time and for future generations.

The struggle of repairing the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and stabilizing the populations that inhabit the bay has historically been complicated. The fishermen know the animals that inhabit the bay are in danger of over exploitation and in need of protection to prohibit the fishing of species like the blue crab would destroy the economy of the Eastern Shore and anyone who depends on blue crabs to make a living. Steps have been taken in recent years to attempt to protect the Chesapeake Bay blue crab taking into account the dependence of the surrounding states on the animal.

The rehabilitation of the Chesapeake Bay and the blue crab is complicated because the bay is affected by many states that are not as invested in crab culture. For states like New York and Pennsylvania, sitting around a table piled high with these blue watermen of the Chesapeake is not a central part of their culture. This cultural separation from the bay has created a sense of disassociation between many people in these regions and the ecosystem that plays a more significant role in their lives than they could ever imagine. A study conducted by the Chesapeake Bay Program found that the water level of the bay has risen between one-eighth and one-sixth of an inch annually since 1960, causing a cumulative sea level rise of as many as ten to twelve inches in southern areas of the bay and six to eight inches in more northern areas. Water level rise in the bay could have devastating effects on the storm management, water and sewage treatment as well as numerous other systems in the states that surround it. The degradation of homes and the health of citizens effects everyone and no one is immune. The same way we can all share in the wonderful things that result from the bay: blue crabs to eat, cooling of the surrounding area, recreational places for families, we also share in the results of its degradation.

The enjoyment of steaming and sharing blue crabs is just one part of why the health of the Chesapeake Bay is critical now and in the future. As someone who cares about the health of the world around me from a marine biologist point of view, and as a citizen of the area, there are many organisms, from plankton to humans that depend on this ecosystem. Going forward there is much to be done to bring back the species endemic to this majestic body of water, such as the blue crab, so children in years to come can learn from their Grandparents how to crack a crab or learn about other parts of the world from people who travel thousands of miles to witness the profound sense of community surrounding the Chesapeake Bay blue crab. It is because of the blue crab I am who I am today. There are many people and experiences that have shaped my life and the path I have taken and who I owe a lifetime of gratitude; for many of them I have the eight-legged, two-clawed watermen of the Chesapeake to thank.