Independence Day means steamed crabs for many Marylanders, but the outlook for celebrating the nation's birthday with a heaping tableful of locally caught crustaceans is as iffy as the weather of late.
Despite a bumper crop of crabs tallied in the Chesapeake Bay during last winter's survey, that bounty has yet to show up at local docks or seafood outlets, watermen and dealers report.
The big crab houses and restaurants always stock their coolers with crabs shipped up from Louisiana or Texas, and some seafood businesses have augmented the local catch with crabs trucked in from down the bay or North Carolina.
Some insist they're swimming in crabs, but others caution they have fewer to sell than last year.
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