In a basement laboratory tucked amid the tourist attractions of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, two Israeli-born scientists are unlocking the mysteries of the Chesapeake Bay blue crab.

Over the past five years, they have spent most of their waking hours poring over tanks filled with the snapping crustaceans and their tiny offspring at a University of Maryland lab on Pratt Street. They feed the crabs homemade algae tailored to their life stage. The researchers control the water temperature, light and salinity, and document the crustaceans’ every move as they shed their shells, mate and reproduce. Once the young crabs are strong enough, the scientists pack them on boats and release them in secluded coves near the Chesapeake Bay.

The scientists are leading a team of researchers from the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute and four other institutions around the country in an effort to do what no one thought could be done — raise crabs in a hatchery, then put them in the bay and watch how they live. The goal is eventually to increase the population of crabs reproducing in the Chesapeake Bay — a feat that scientists say has not been accomplished in any body of water anywhere in the world.

Some doubt that it will work. Not only would the hatchery have to produce many millions of crabs to make a difference in the bay, but past attempts to restock the world’s waterways with hatchery-raised fish have been expensive disasters. Raising crabs in a hatchery is difficult because they endure nine larval stages in three weeks — each requiring a precise temperature and food. And crabs are cannibalistic — the hard ones eat the soft ones, which have shed their shell to grow.

Read (Baltimore Sun)