REUTERS/Stringer/usa, Ho
Karl Wagner, a commercial fisherman for Keys Fisheries in Marathon, Florida, plucks stone crabs out of a trap off the Florida Keys October 15, 2005. Florida's stone crab season begins October 15 and retail prices for the claws are expected to rise 10 to 15 percent above last year's opening prices due to soaring fuel costs. The Keys accounts for about 40 percent of about 3.1 million pounds of claws harvested statewide each year. Stone crabs are a renewable fishery resource with legal-size claws harvested and the crab's body returned to the water to grow new extremities. NO SALES NO ARCHIVES