In an effort to protect Maryland's at-risk diamondback terrapin population, the General Assembly last week approved new restrictions on the harvesting of the state's official reptile.
The new guidelines trim the harvesting season from nine months to three -- from Aug. 1 through Oct. 31 -- and erase the minimum 6-inch length requirement, replacing it with "slot limits" that prohibit the harvesting of terrapins shorter than 4 inches or longer than 7 inches. The new limits aim to protect reproducing female terrapins, which range in length from 6 to 9 inches.
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Though the exact status of the Maryland terrapin population remains unknown until the completion of an ongoing U.S. Geological Survey, Howard King, director of the Department of Natural Resources' Fisheries Service, said a variety of factors pose a threat to terrapins inhabiting Maryland, none greater than the destruction of the their Chesapeake Bay shoreline habitat.
"We suspect the (terrapin) population is not increasing bay-wide, due to a number of factors," King said. "Primarily, their nesting beach habitat on which they depend has disappeared due to climactic events and shoreline development."
Other factors King mentioned include fishermen inadvertently trapping and drowning terrapins in crab pots, and boats striking surfaced terrapins in waterways.
However, according to Marguerite Whilden, co-director of the Terrapin Institute and Research Consortium, a nonprofit conservation organization, Maryland terrapins also face the risk of being over-harvested, as they were more than 100 years ago.
Once considered a popular gourmet food in the U.S., Maryland terrapins were fished to near extinction in the late 1800s, but the population experienced a resurgence as demand waned over the following century.
That demand, however, has returned in pet and Asian food markets Whilden said, claiming that several tagged Chesapeake Bay terrapins have turned up in New York Asian fish markets in recent years.
Whilden, who served on the Governor's Diamondback Terrapin Taskforce in 2001, said she does not believe the new regulations go far enough in protecting Maryland terrapins from being over-fished and, in many ways, put them at greater risk.
"This flies in the face of good conservation," Whilden said. "Under no circumstances in fishing management should you lower the size limit of the animal you're trying to preserve."
However, according to Gina Hunt, assistant director of the DNR fisheries service, commercial harvesting of terrapins is not significant and does not pose the most immediate threat to their population.
From 2000 to 2005, dealers reported a total terrapin harvest of 25,000 pounds Hunt said, providing an average combined income of less than $6,200 per year for commercial harvesters.
"Obviously, commercial fishing of terrapins is on our radar -- it's why we submitted the proposal," Hunt said. "But there are bigger threats in habitat and other problems for terrapins than commercial fishing."
Hunt added that since the new Aug. 1 regulations, which require all terrapin harvesters in the state to register, only 16 watermen have applied for a permit.
Distinguished by diamond-shaped, concentric rings on its upper shell, the diamondback terrapin was named the official state reptile in 1994 and has been the mascot of the University of Maryland since 1933.
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