After two years of meager harvests, the forecast for this year's stone crab catch is cautiously upbeat, though prices likely will remain high.
Crabbers won't know until they start hauling up traps on Wednesday, the official start to the season, but Bill Kelly, executive director of the Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen's Association, pointed to the absence of crabs' two biggest nemeses: a blood disease in the crabs called hematodinium parasite triggered by red tides in the Gulf of Mexico, and tropical storm interference during the harvesting period.
"If we don't have any storms, we are fairly upbeat that it will be a productive season," he said, noting that concerns about the blood disease have abated but still exist in the Panhandle (where he also said "there is a lingering question about whether there's any correlation in northern gulf (crab numbers) and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill").
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