Hitting the crab pot jackpot: fishermen have cashed in helping scientists study the rapid, worrisome decline of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay.(AROUND THE MALL: SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)

Publication: Smithsonian

Publication Date: 01-AUG-05

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Ralph yates was plying the waters of the Chesapeake Bay last summer in his boat, Critter Gitter, when he pulled up a crab pot and found that he'd caught a winning lottery ticket. The trap held a female blue crab bearing a pink plastic tag that promised a reward and listed a phone number. Yates, a 51-year-old commercial fisherman, or "waterman" in Chesapeake parlance, dialed and got biologist Rob Aguilar of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater, Maryland. Aguilar noted where the crab was caught and mailed Yates a $5 bill. Then, in December, Yates won...

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