Every one of the 26 people who spoke were against the regulations. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources is proposing cutting the commercial harvest of females short by seven weeks by closing it on Oct. 23, setting catch limits for female crabs in September and October and banning recreational crabbers from keeping females altogether.

At the meeting last night, participants made their voices heard that they feel the lower shore - and Dorchester County in particular - will take a bad economic hit.

Several elected officials noted the county's already-high unemployment rate - 5.7 percent in 2006, compared with 3.3 percent in Anne Arundel County at the same time.

"It's going to have a big impact on the whole county," said Rick Price, a Dorchester County Councilman.

Not only is the lower shore home to watermen, it's also home to most of the remaining crab picking houses.

Jack Brooks, of Cambridge's J.M.

Clayton Co., said cutting back the harvest in September and October would be akin to shutting down the Ocean City tourism industry in July. He said he's all for making sure there are crabs for the future, but not at the expense of the present.

"We want to be around to participate in a recovered fishery," he said.

Though few consumers want female steamed crabs, the females are often picked for crab meat that's sold in stores or sold to restaurants for soups and crab cakes.

Scientists say they need to cut the harvest to allow more females to survive and spawn more baby crabs. Surveys have shown the population of adult crabs remains below the desired level of 200 million. And too great a percentage of crabs are being harvested each year - 60 percent in 2007, compared with the maximum safe level of 53 percent.

Maryland and Virginia officials have agreed to cut the baywide female harvest by 34 percent this year.

Watermen and seafood processors repeated several arguments against the proposed restrictions, including:

Virginia continues to allow the harvest of pregnant females, called "sponge crabs," even though that has long been outlawed in Maryland.

The harvest changes are coming midseason and without enough discussion.

Although the state is promoting the idea of financial assistance, details haven't been worked out and the federal government hasn't committed any money.

The regulations should be created so that they "spread the pain" around to watermen throughout the bay.

The meeting turned tense near the end, as one waterman accused state Natural Resources Secretary John Griffin of being disingenuous when he said at the outset that he has lost sleep over these regulations. The waterman angrily said Mr. Griffin still would get a paycheck no matter what happens to the crabbers.

An equally angry Mr. Griffin rose and said he and his staff have been working hard and have pushed Virginia - which has more liberal crabbing rules - to make historic concessions.

"Now stand up here and tell me I'm full of (expletive), because I'm not," Mr. Griffin said.

The exchange continued briefly and the public comments portion of the meeting was ended shortly after.

The next step in the process comes May 22, when a joint House of Delegates and Senate committee reviews the regulations. The Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review Committee has the power to approve or deny the regulations, because they are classified as emergency rule changes.

If the AELR committee shoots down the rules, the Department of Natural Resources has a backup plan of non-emergency regulations that only need the governor's approval. That plan involves banning the keeping of females by recreational crabbers and a total harvest closure on females on Oct. 11 for commercial crabbers.

A meeting on the rules is tentatively scheduled for June 4 in Annapolis.