2021 Winter Dredge Report, for what it's worth.

[bassman349]

https://news.maryland.gov/dnr/2021/05/21/chesapeake-bay-blue-crab-population-shows-healthy-female-abundance/

[indoe]

So after all the regs of not allowed to keep females, increasing the size on July 15. The crab population is now down to a 15 year low.   I'm sure the report is completely accurate. No one go crabbing. I seem to always have a good year when they say there is not many crabs. Then when they said the crab population is high my crabbing season is down the toilet. Looks like it might be a good year for me.

[Pinchy]

So after all the regs of not allowed to keep females, increasing the size on July 15. The crab population is now down to a 15 year low.

That's because the crab population is not dependent on number of females. Each female crab lays close to a million or more eggs; they produce exponentially more individuals than can possibly survive. The limiting factors with any highly fecund marine breeding population is: food, shelter, clean environment, dissolved O2, absence of toxins, etc. The Maryland DNR is restricting female harvest because they cannot control the other factors; it is a feel-good, "let's do something" solution to an intractable problem.

Contra "common sense" (LOL), taking some females might help to balance the existing population*. It certainly won't affect the number of surviving spawn one iota.

*[Smithsonian scientists worry that efforts to save females might produce a serious side effect: overfishing males. When male crabs decline, those remaining mate more often, and sometimes can't regenerate their sperm supply quickly enough, according to a study by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/to-save-their-depleted-species-female-blue-crabs-go-the-extra-mile-to-spawn-in-the-bay/2015/02/12/27559242-a316-11e4-903f-9f2faf7cd9fe_story.html]