SC DNR has new blue crab law to enforce and help fisheries

As this year’s legislative session wound down, lawmakers found a way to resurrect and pass a nearly dead bill that would have strengthened blue crab fishing regulations in South Carolina, a major bill signed into law by Gov. Henry McMaster on July 1.

We have been calling on lawmakers to take action for years as it becomes increasingly clear that our lax regulations are placing a serious burden on one of our state’s most popular fishing spots.

There is still a lot of work to be done, starting with the Department of Natural Resources implementing this new law. Those who already have commercial crab licenses can keep them, at least until June 30, 2025, after which new limited blue crab licenses with qualifying criteria will go into effect.

The agency must develop strategies to enforce limits on the number of traps commercial crabbers can use, and a new system for transferring commercial crab licenses. Perhaps most important—and the source of much of the controversy as the bill made its way through the Legislature—the agency must decide how to approach closing crab fishing to certain times or in certain bodies of water, as it does for shrimp and oyster fishing.

Any closures should not only be notified in good time but also kept to a minimum, for example by removing unnecessary or abandoned traps or giving crab populations time to recover after a severe drought.

The new law mainly targets commercial crabbing, which takes the most blue crabs from our waters, but it also imposes a daily limit of one bushel of blue crabs per recreational crab fisherman (and two bushels per boat) per day. A spokeswoman for the Department of Natural Resources said research shows that few recreational crab fishermen ever catch more than that, so the change likely won’t affect many people. However, people with recreational crab traps must also make sure their traps have two escape rings — small holes through which small crabs and fish can escape.

These measures won’t go into effect for a year, but everyone should take action now in the spirit of protecting the crab population and helping them recover. Just as everyone should check their traps regularly, keep only crabs that are longer than 5 inches from point to point, and never keep crabs with eggs, which are the spongy orange mass on the shell.

People fishing in and around Charleston waters also have a special opportunity to help. DNR biologists have launched a new blue crab sampling and tagging program to gather better data on the crabs’ movements, which will help determine how temperature, precipitation and salinity affect them. Anyone who catches a crab with a red plastic tag on its shell should report it at dnr.sc.gov/CRABTAG; yes, there will be prizes, including one $500 winner.

We’ve been urging the agency to deepen our understanding of this tasty and important species; its researchers have tracked blue crabs in seven long-term monitoring studies, as well as recording data on commercial catches. “We’re confident in these data, but we’re always interested in expanding our research efforts and asking more focused research questions like the ones this new tagging study will address,” Michael Kendrick of Natural Resources tells us. “Blue crabs face a variety of threats—changing climate, habitat degradation—and fishing pressure is one of the few factors that humans have any control over.”

Even those who aren’t interested in crabbing can play a positive role by purchasing a saltwater fishing license, which helps fund the agency’s work and also supports seafood markets and restaurants that source crabs from local anglers. We agree with Brooke Blosser of the Coastal Conservation League when she tells us, “We don’t want to see crabbing go out of business, and the most sustainable way to support the fishery is to buy as local as possible.”

There is optimism about the future of blue crabs, as South Carolina’s laws are more in line with those of neighboring states. However, this newfound confidence should not lead to complacency.

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