Picking houses apparently need a lesson on preserving the crab population

in the photo that accompanied your story on guest workers, I noticed that all the crabs that could be identified by gender were female ("Md. crab processors battle new federal wage rule," Sept. 16).

My grandfathers, neither of whom were watermen, taught us never to eat female crabs if we wanted to be able to eat crabs in the future. Perhaps the packing houses should be taking heed of such simple wisdom from Maryland's past.

D. Hare, Baltimore