Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 15:26:51 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Re: Non-Bird Question - Blue Crabs In-Reply-To: <6FBAF0F2D082D511833800105A9CBAC70125BFEE@EXCHANGE> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit One problem is that the legal size for catching Blue Crab in Maryland is 5" point to point (of shell). That is for a hard crab, not a soft shell, for which the limit is smaller (but I forget what, maybe 3 1/2"). A 5" blue crab will probably be VERY unhappy in a goldfish bowl! Of course folks regularly take small blue crabs and put them in aquariums at schools etc., but I confess I am unsure of what the regulations are for educational uses. Also not sure if a wedding decoration qualifies for educational use, anyway. Perhaps your friend would be happy with a smaller species of crab, an unregulated species, such as mud crab. Another interesting species would be the native Grass Shrimp, which can be purchased from bait stores (alive). They have a great deal of charisma in an aquarium. A small appropriate fish would be the common killifish (Fundulus) and it would be less apt to die on duty than the Silverside Minnow. Both of these are also sometimes available from stores that sell bait for Bay fishing. Gail Mackiernan Silver Spring, MD on 04/29/2003 1:20 PM, Denise Ryan at Denise_Ryan@LCV.ORG wrote: > Any recommendations where I could buy live MD Blue Crabs around Kent Island? > A friend wants to have live MD crabs in 1 gallon goldfish bowls as table > decorations at her wedding ceremony on Kent Island in a few weeks. Since I > have a big "sucker" slapped across my forehead, I am the project manager for > this little endeavor. I really don't eat crab much, don't buy crab and > never handled live one either. > > And now that I have your attention, do you have any recommendations for > kinds of bait fish to buy to put in the goldfish bowls with them? > > The idea is to include all native species so we can release the crabs and > other live critters back into the Bay at the end of the reception since it > will be in a backyard on the Bay. Thanks! > > Will take replies off line at denise_ryan@lcv.org > > Denise Ryan > Washington, DC > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================