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]
