Sun coverage: Maryland crab industry

Blue crab population said to fall again

The Chesapeake Bay's 2008 blue crab population has dropped below last year's alarming levels, according to a report released yesterday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Disaster status urged for crabs

Maryland and Virginia's U.S. senators say there's no time to waste in declaring the decline of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs a federal disaster.

Crabbers reporting a rich early harvest

Despite gloomy predictions, watermen have been finding a bounty of crabs so far this season as they work the waters off the lower Eastern Shore.

Md. asks disaster status for crab

Gov. Martin O'Malley has asked the U.S. commerce secretary to declare the Chesapeake Bay's blue crab fishery a federal disaster, a move officials hope will generate $15 million to create jobs for watermen.

Living with the crab

For more than a century, the blue crab has sustained life on this marshy sliver of land between the Chesapeake Bay and the Honga River. Income from the harvest pays the mortgage, the electric bill, the tab at the grocery store, even college tuition.

Watermen ponder suit over crabbing plans

Chesapeake Bay watermen are considering legal action over proposals in Maryland and Virginia to reduce the crab harvest, arguing that the states shouldn't punish crabbers for government's failure to clean up the bay.

Maryland proposes a new set of crabbing rules

Maryland natural resources officials proposed new crabbing rules yesterday that were not as strict as watermen had feared, but will disproportionately hurt crabbers on the Lower Eastern Shore.

Betting on a comeback

Proposed limits on crab harvest spawn debate

A new, uncertain season

With crab populations down and rules in limbo, watermen work under a cloud

In visa dispute, businesses face summer worker gap

With Congress at an impasse over visas for seasonal laborers, the owners of Eastern Shore businesses that have counted on foreign workers to pick crabs, wash dishes and can corn are bracing for a difficult summer ahead - with consequences that they warn will spread throughout the state economy.

Watermen briefed on state plans to restrict crab harvest

Nearly 100 watermen attended a meeting in Annapolis last night to hear state officials' proposals for restricting Maryland's blue crab harvest in hopes of protecting the increasingly struggling crustacean.

'Made in USA'

The routine isn't rehearsed, but after hundreds of appearances on the QVC shopping channel over the past decade, Ron and Margie Kauffman know what they'll say when it comes to the millions of Maryland-style crab cakes they sell under the brand Chesapeake Bay Gourmet.

A Sun special report: Part two

Working the water

On Smith Island, Donna Smith knows there's only one thing for women like her to do once their men have delivered their catch of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs and the crabs have been steamed and silenced for good.

Helping nature

Working in a light drizzle at low tide, Wallop Suwanno clambers from his small boat onto the roof of a wooden tank just offshore, lowers a plastic bucket holding four egg-bearing female crabs and dumps them into the water.

A Sun special report: Part one

Crab factory

By 9 a.m. the crab boats have already been coming and going from the pier for close to five hours, with migrant Burmese workers laboring to unload, sort, weigh and steam crabs that are destined for dinner plates on the other side of the world.

The Pilgrims Of Palomas: A Sun Follow-Up

Home beckons for crab pickers

FISHING CREEK // Five months after coming to this marshy village on the Chesapeake Bay to take jobs picking crabs in a processing plant, Trinidad Tovar Tovar and a dozen other workers headed home to Mexico yesterday, their luggage bulging with trinkets, souvenirs and new clothes.

The Pilgrims of Palomas

Marking season's halfway point

HOOPERS ISLAND - Anyone looking for a fiesta - make that FIESTA! - need search no farther than this narrow strip of marshy waterfront that is the summer home of Mexican women who do the dirty work in Maryland's seafood industry.

Crab industry gets back to business

HOOPERS ISLAND - Just a few months ago, Harry Phillips wouldn't have bet a nickel that his crab processing plant would still be in business - much less humming along, turning out mounds of creamy steamed crabmeat.

The Pilgrims of Palomas

Picking up where they left off

HOOPERS ISLAND - The nimble fingers of Consuelo Morales, 52, were flying through what looked like mountains of steamed crabs piled high on stainless steel tables.

The Pilgrims of Palomas

Change in law allows Mexicans to get visas for Md. jobs

LAREDO, Texas - Benita Tovar Tovar couldn't stop smiling as she stood, finally, in the United States.

House passes extension for visas

Emergency legislation allowing foreign workers to return to jobs at crab-picking houses on Maryland's Eastern Shore cleared its last major hurdle yesterday as the House of Representatives easily approved the measure, which supporters slipped into an unrelated military spending bill.

Crab pickers turn to House for seasonal-worker visas

KENT NARROWS - Buoyed by a victory in the U.S. Senate this week, Maryland's seafood processors turned their attention yesterday to winning House of Representatives approval for a visa program they say is crucial to the survival of the Chesapeake Bay's signature industry.

As crab season approaches, Shore businesses left in limbo

HOOPER'S ISLAND - In the seasonal rhythm of life on this slice of land dangling alongside the Chesapeake Bay, the first days of the commercial crab season are marked by anticipation.

The Pilgrims of Palomas

PALOMAS, Mexico - Powdery gray dust clouds rise around her ankles with each footstep, then hang and drift on the breeze as Trinidad Tovar Tovar bustles about the bare dirt yard outside the concrete and cinderblock house she shares with her three grown sons and their families. Nearby, a listless menagerie of chickens, goats, a burro and two scrawny dogs waits for a handout.

Work-visa limit snags Shore employers

For the first time in more than a decade, many Maryland businesses are warning that there won't be anyone to pick the crabs, shuck the oysters or trim the hedges.