The Crabs are Coming!

The Blue Crab, Callinectes sapidus, is a hugely valuable crab to economies around its native North American coasts. In fact it is the state crustacean of Maryland, not that it cares about state boundaries. So much so that it has spread around the world, and all without a passport!

It is an incredibly invasive species - and since it was first spotted in Mediterranean and European waters in 2012 its populations have grown exponentially and caused extensive damage to ecosystems, as well as local economies.

The crab is aggressive, and almost without predators in its new environment. Only large octopus really stand a chance against it. In Spain the crab is being found further and further up river deltas, where it travels in winter to eat everything from the farmed molluscs to frogs.

Spanish waters are not the only victims of this voracious crab, it has also had a disastrous impact on Tunisian, Albanian, and Turkish fisheries. In 2014 the crab forced the beleaguered Tunisian government to subsidise the catch lost to the blue crab which was destroying local resources and clogging their nets. They held it in such hatred that they nicknamed it Daesh, after the fundamentalist militant group. Anecdotal evidence from Tunisian fisheries notes that while white fish stocks are dramatically less, octopus and squid numbers are growing, perhaps on account of how delicious they find these crabs.

Tunisian fishers have now begun attempting to export the crabs, but as with Albania and Turkey, are finding it difficult to enter the European trading bloc and lack an internal market.

The most recent invasion is currently taking place in France, where fishers have sent the crabs to the presidential palace. In a classically French way the fishers are aiming to highlight government failures, as well as prove, through their taste, that the crab is a potential market to be exploited.

There was a scare earlier this year when a blue crab was found in Ireland, but with warming seas, their range will eventually increase and the crabs may well move northward toward Fortress Britain.

I’d like to see your tea-swilling, bowler-hat wearing Spitfire pilots do anything about that Tommy.