Piney Point Crab Nursery Grows Babies Quickly

On Southern Maryland’s tip is what crabbers and researchers hope will be the future of the bay: a network of watermen-operated crab nurseries that can operate with little staff and a minimum of funds.

If it works, it could help stall – or halt – the collapse of the Chesapeake Bay’s blue crab population. Spawning-age populations of bay crabs fell 80 percent over the 1990s. So far, the lab crustaceans are growing to be healthy adults, with a survival rate of 20 percent to 30 percent after they’re pitched into the Chesapeake Bay. Their wild peers survive at a rate of just 0.301%.

[Read](http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=25&sid=338516 “Read the Article”) (WTOP)