To Some Chesapeake Crabbers, a $50 Document Is Priceless
Despite Industry's Woes, Many Watermen Refuse to Sell Symbol of Old Way of Life

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 24, 2009

The Chesapeake Bay, raked by storms and swimming with things that pinch and sting, has always been brutal on wooden boats, old lighthouses and ungloved fingers.

Turns out it's equally treacherous for economists.

Maryland officials enlisted the help of PhDs this summer, trying to use modern economic theory to solve a problem that has been brewing for 40 years. There are too few blue crabs in the bay and too many watermen licensed to catch them.

The economists' solution: a "reverse auction." The state would buy some licenses back, and each crabber could name his price.

It didn't work. Last week, the state gave up on the auction, saying the bids were too few and too high.

State officials found that modern economics still has a lot to learn about the value of a $50-per-year crab license, at least in the Chesapeake. Many license-holders haven't caught a crab in years but treat their cards as an unsellable proof of identity, a last physical connection to a life they love but can't live.

"This is something that I've had a hard time facing, letting go of what I think I should be," said Brian Bowen, 31, the son of a Calvert County waterman. Bowen works for a mechanical and plumbing contractor in the Washington suburbs and hasn't crabbed regularly in 12 years.

At first, he thought about selling his license for $5,000 or $6,000.

Then he decided he wouldn't sell at any price.

"You've always got to remember where you came from. And it's very important to me to have the card here, just so I can explain to my nephew, 'This is how your grandfather made his living,' " Bowen said. He said he also felt that selling his license would be an admission that the bay's problems are the watermen's fault.

The idea for an auction came up as Maryland officials struggled with one of the bay's toughest moral questions: how to help crabs and crabbers at the same time. Both are Chesapeake icons. Both have suffered as cities, suburbs and farms have choked the bay with pollution.

But one survives by catching the other and selling it to be eaten. So, as economists say, their interests are not always aligned.

The auction was supposed to benefit both. Last month, the state made its offer to 3,676 people who hold "limited crab catcher" licenses. That is a little more than half of the state's watermen, small-timers who can set up to 50 wire-mesh pots to trap crabs underwater. The offer did not apply to the other watermen, who can set more pots and more often make their living from the water.

Lynn Fegley, an official with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, said that many of the 3,676 crabbers hold a license but haven't caught any crabs in years. That makes it hard to forecast each year's harvest.

"When you have 1,000 people who may or may not choose to fish, that can really cause you to exceed your catch limits" if they all suddenly set traps at once, Fegley said. "We're not saying we have too many watermen. We're saying we have too many licenses."

But instead of offering a set amount for each license, the state asked the crabbers to name their price. That was the economists' idea.

"You're trying to get people to reveal what in economics . . . you call their 'reservation price,' " meaning the minimum amount a seller will accept for a given item, said Eric Thunberg, an economist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who helped design the auction.

The idea was related to game theory. Since the crabbers wouldn't know what their colleagues were bidding, they would be encouraged to bid low. In theory, the state could take only the lowest bids, so it could buy the largest amount of licenses for the least cost.

In theory. In Maryland, most crabbers refused to play the game.

The state had wanted to buy back 2,000 licenses, using money provided by the federal government, which has declared the bay's crab fishery an economic disaster. But when the auction closed July 31, only 494 bids had come in. Of those, about half were offers to sell for $5,000 or more, an amount the state considered too high.

One waterman, whom state officials wouldn't name, offered his license for $425 million.

"That was what I would call definitely a protest bid," said Douglas Lipton, a University of Maryland professor who also helped design the auction. (Translated into waterman: "That was telling 'em to stick it," said Larry Simns, president of the Maryland Watermen's Association).

So why didn't it work?

"I don't know why yet," Lipton said. "People are just reluctant to participate, even if we think they could benefit from it."

In interviews, crabbers said the reasons were clear. Some feared that if they bid too low, they'd kick themselves when their neighbor sold his license for more. Some refused because they still make a living on the water.

"If I sell my license, what else am I going to do? I'm 55 years old. I can't get a job anywhere," said Daniel Jones of Cambridge, Md., who catches crabs in the summer using a trotline, a long string with multiple baits, often chicken necks or bull lips. He didn't send in a bid.

For others, the decision had nothing to do with money.

Gerald Benton Sr., 60, quit the water five years ago because of declining catches and now works installing power-line poles on the Eastern Shore. But he said giving up his license would mean giving up on an image of himself -- a fourth-and-probably-more-generation waterman who happens to make his living digging holes in the ground.

"I would feel like a part of me was gone. Like [when] my father, like [when] my grandmother passed, it would be like that," said Benton, who lives in Deal Island, Md. He offered to sell for $10,000, knowing the state wouldn't take it. "This is what I am."

Maryland officials have scrapped the auction results and gone to a more old-fashioned approach: the carrot and stick. They're offering the 3,676 small-time watermen a fixed price, $2,260, for their licenses.

Those who don't accept the offer and haven't caught crabs in five years might face an uncomfortable choice. If they want to keep their licenses active, they might have to agree not to pass them on to future generations of their family.

Despite Maryland's experience, Virginia officials are trying a reverse auction of their own. Their offer went to all 1,800 of the state's licensed crabbers, big-time and small: Name your price. Bids are due Nov. 1.

On Tangier Island, Va., a marshy outpost in the lower bay where watermen have lived since the 1600s, James "Ooker" Eskridge said he already knew his answer.

"I don't think they've got enough [money] for me to do it," said Eskridge, the Tangier town mayor. He got his nickname from a sound he made as a child. "I don't know, man. It would take a lot of money to get me off the water."