Only claws are harvested from stone crabs trapped in marine waters off Florida, and crabs are released to regenerate them. In practice, stone crabs often are held in shipboard boxes and declawed as vessels return to port. A direct relationship exists between holding time and stone crab mortality, but mortality is reduced significantly when crabs are dampened periodically with seawater. When crabs held 6 h in boxes were wetted with seawater once every hour, mortality declined from 100% (no wetting) to 23% (periodic wetting). Mortality of both wetted and unwetted stone crabs increased when claws were not broken along the natural fracture plane.