Crabs Trying to Get to Bay

Type: Chesapeake
Region: Lower Bay
Location: Scotland, MD

At the end of Holly Drive in Scotland, MD, there is a sometimes an open creek that goes into Deep Creek Pond. The Pond contains an abundance of crabs, but they like to have interchange with the Chesapeake Bay. On Sunday, 9/7, the creek was heavily silted, in so the crabs could not exit to the Bay. There were hundreds, almost all females, piled up at the east end of the creek. Then on Monday, 9/8, during the nor'easter that over washed the silted-in entrance to the creek, there were thousands of crabs trying to get out to the Bay. Unfortunately for the crabs, the shallow strong inflow prevented most of them from exiting, so they just hunkered down. The photo shows a portion of them. On the morning of Tuesday, 9/9, the nor'easter had abated somewhat, and the crabs were stranded on the wet sand and still alive! Hopefully the next high tide would have permitted them to get to the Bay. Some residents of the area suspect that the preponderance of females is due to illegal commercial harvesting of males in the Pond. Regardless, periodic dredging of the creek exit would greatly help the crabs out where they could thrive.