The governors of Virginia and Maryland yesterday vowed to save blue crabs from vanishing from the waters and dinner tables of the Chesapeake Bay.

Standing by the blue waters of the Potomac River at Colonial Beach, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said they would order fishery regulators in their states to work together to reduce this year's harvest of female crabs by 34 per cent.

The governors said in a joint statement that a recent survey "has confirmed that the Chesapeake Bay's blue crab population is suffering near historic lows in spawning stock and unacceptably high fishing rates."

Last year's crab harvest of 44 million pounds was the lowest since 1945, said Lynn Fegley of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. In 1993, crabbers in Maryland and Virginia caught 118-million pounds.

Marine scientists estimate that 280 million crabs now live in the Chesapeake. But Fegley said that winter surveys taken since 1990 show that the number of spawning-age crabs has dropped from about 450 million in 1990 to about 100 million last year.

Fegley said the number is perilously close to falling below a threshold of 86 million spawning-age crabs that scientists feel is necessary to sustain the species.

Fegley said the proposed reduction in female crab harvests could rebuild the crab population in two or three years and lead to sustainable, even greater production. "The more moms, the more babies," she said.

Regulators in the two states have adopted--or propose to adopt soon--many measures to curtail crab catches this year. The new restrictions include reductions in the number of crab pots, changes in pot construction to allow more small crabs to escape, and shorter hours and seasons for crabbers.

In addition, Virginia also intends to limit the dredging of crabs from an area in the southern portion of the Bay where tens of millions of female crabs bury themselves in the mud over the winter before releasing their eggs the following summer.