Wholesale Female Crabbing in Florida? How is that okay??

[anamealreadyinuse]

My wife surprised me today with a dozen crab sold from a retail place.  The place said they are getting them from a local crabber.  GREAT prices for large blue crab but when she got home I realized most of these crab were female?  I'm assuming that most of those for sale were also female as the only instruction she gave the man was that they had to be lively as she knows I don't buy any dead crab...now...down to brass tacks...how is this okay?  I mean, isn't it a unwritten rule to return the girls back to the sea?  I heard someplace that a female only produces eggs once but have no idea if that is true and how would anybody know if the female had dropped her egg sack or not yet?  

[registereduser]

dont know about unwritten laws,  mature female and peeler harvest is common in all crab fisheries i'm aware of. some restrictions here and then. sounds like you got retail. Md started this no female for recs as a means to gain public approval from like minded thinkers. click on the little crab at the bottom. enjoy those gulf gorls

[anamealreadyinuse]

Okay, that is where I am getting that from then...I grew up in VA and had it drilled into me that keeping females were bad, even bad tasting...I've had a few slip in but can honestly say any I've caught or bought I've always insisted on male crabs...is it true then that after the she crabs have dropped their sacks they don't produce again?

[mdjohn]

press the little crab symbol at the bottom of the page and read about mating and egg laying or do a search - top right

this is an old topic on this forum

 

[snapper69]

anamealreadyinuse egg bearing femles that look like this should be placed back in the water.  The search tool is a wonderful thing and even if you google bluecrabs 90% of the time it will direct ya to this site.  Hope this helps.

http://www.bluecrab.info/identification.html  Scroll down to the "Sponge Crab".

[ACFISHERIES]

Fl. law says we can keep them as long as they don't have an eggs.

They eat pretty good too.

[jack1747]

Okay, that is where I am getting that from then...I grew up in VA and had it drilled into me that keeping females were bad, even bad tasting...I've had a few slip in but can honestly say any I've caught or bought I've always insisted on male crabs...is it true then that after the she crabs have dropped their sacks they don't produce again?

Females mate only once during their terminal molt.  A mature female (Sook) can store the males crabs sperm for multiple spawns.  It has been documented in the lab that a female crab has spawned 8 times on a single mating.

"Although a female will mate only once, she may produce many fertilized egg masses during her lifetime from this single mating. Fertilization occurs each time a new egg mass is produced by the ovaries until the sperm reserves are depleted. Studies in Florida found that some female crabs produce as many as seven broods (sponges) in one year from a single mating, and up to 18 broods over 2–2½ years. Chesapeake Bay female crabs are capable of producing multiple egg masses over several years, though most will not produce more than one or two masses due to their short average life span, typically 1–2 years."

[rdbeard]

I love eating sooks- mature female crabs at certain times of the year. In the fall when they are full and fat with the eggs still on the inside, crab caviar.

[bayonne]

almost every fish market in nj sells females and call them md crabs and most are big mummys but not with egg sacks which makes them legal