Blue Crab

Maryland Blue Crab, originally uploaded by Lostwave.

They have finally stopped harvesting crabs in the winter in Virginia.

REEDVILLE, Virginia (Reuters) - It doesn't look like a disaster area.

Crab boats dart back and forth on this inlet of the Chesapeake Bay as they have for generations. On the shore, million-dollar vacation homes catch the morning sun.

But watermen aren't pulling blue crabs out of the Bay this winter. After years of decline, the U.S. Commerce Department declared the fishery a federal disaster last September and Maryland and Virginia shut it down until spring.

It was a symbolic as well as an economic blow for the men who harvest the region's defining culinary treat.

Fisherman are complaining, but they took to many. The winter fishery should have been closed years ago because of declining stock. Virginia has been a very poor steward of the Chesapeake Bay. Virginians were illigally fishing in Maryland waters in 1692 and have not realy stopped screwing up the bat since.