Blue crab populations in Chesapeake Bay are considered as a single stock (Bromilow 2023). The assessment is conducted via abundance estimates of mature females from the Winter Dredge Survey in Chesapeake Bay and assessed by management body of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) (Bromilow 2023). 

Note: In 2018, It was revealed that from 2012-2015, 0.18 tonnes of crab meat sold labeled as Chesapeake blue crab from the United States had been intentionally diluted with cheaper species of crab from foreign countries (Keller and Heckman LLP 2018). Initiatives for combating fraudulent seafood importing (e.g. NOAA’s Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP) established in 2018), are not sufficiently equipped to address the occurrence of supply chain fraud perpetrated in the United States (Keller and Heckman LLP 2018).