Ten months after putting together the hatchery, Harcke can see the fruits of her labor as about 100 juvenile crabs feast on frozen shrimp. The crustaceans are one of the first groups of blue crabs in the country to have successfully gone through eight molting stages outside of their traditional surroundings.

"Our work shows it is feasible to raise blue crabs through the juvenile stage in a captivity setting," Harcke said as she stood in her small laboratory cluttered with beakers, holding tanks and microscopes.

To local crabber Murray Bridges of Endurance Seafood, the work of the researchers could translate into benefits for the blue-crab industry, the state's most lucrative fishery.

"The more crabs you put in the water, the better off you are," he said. "And it does open the door for raising crabs as an aquaculture, just like you raise fish like striped bass and catfish."

Blue-crab landing counts have been down for the past three years, reaching about 55.9 million pounds in 1999, but plummeting to 30 million pounds in 2001. N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries Biologist Supervisor Sean McKenna said it's unclear whether the decline is biologically or environmentally driven.

Harcke's $63,000 project and Eggleston's $38,000 study are among a handful of projects sponsored by the program, which is looking at ways to enhance blue-crab stocks.

Eggleston's work involves catching wild larvae with plankton nets and moving them to underused nursery areas. While promising, Eggleston said, the aquaculture of blue crabs is not without challenges.

Eric Johnson, an N.C. State graduate student working with Eggleston, said blue-crab aquaculture could allow crabbers to set the market time and price by raising the crustaceans during the winter when there is not much of a market. Crab shedders, he said, could also operate their businesses year-round.

By MICHELLE WAGNER