Researchers believe they had a good chance at restoring the crab population in the Bay.
Federal Funds Cut For Crab Study
Alex DeMetrick
A promising avenue of research which might restore large numbers of crabs to the Chesapeake has hit something of a dead end.
Alex DeMetrick reports the Bush administration has killed federal funding just as science was making the leap from the lab to the bay.
Scientists at the University of Maryland can often be found studying crabs in their final larval stage.
They’ve spent six years unraveling the blue crab’s unique secrets with a major goal in mind.
“To release into the Chesapeake Bay a large enough number–millions of juvenile crabs–to make a difference in bringing the breed stock back,” said Dr. Yonathan Zohar of the UM Biotechnology Institute.
But it’s too late for federal money.
The Bush administration has cut back funding from $4 million a year to zero dollars for the blue crab project.
So even though researchers can raise crabs to juvenile size for release in the bay, that artificial population boom might go bust before it’s tried.
Researchers believe hatchery-raised crabs have a good chance at restoring the population.
Last year, they released more than 200,000 crabs and found they grew, bred and migrated like those born in the wild.
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Posted on January 8th, 2008 by Tilghman Guy
Filed under: General
Stevensville, MD