Slashdot Mirror
Millions of King Crabs Turn Sea to Desert
Reporter writes "Russian biologist, Yuri Illarionovich Orlov, succeeded where Stalin failed by implanting the red king crabs into the Barents Sea. Except now, 40 years later, he's getting worried. Why? The giant crabs are clawing their way along the bottom of the Barents Sea are spreading like wildfire along the northern coasts of Russia and Norway and will continue to spread as far as Gibraltar, the southern tip of the European continent. How come? One female crab can lay 500,000 eggs at a time, of which one or two percent will become crabs. The kicker is that the species is protected by diplomatic accords between Norway and Russia, so fishing quotas are in place.
From the article: "The Kamchatka crab, also known as the Alaskan or red king crab, was introduced into the Barents by the Soviets in the 1960s — some 30 years after a first, failed attempt by Stalin — in a bid to bolster Russia's food supplies. ... The crabs weigh up to 12 kilograms (26 pounds) and measure up to two meters (6.5 feet) from pincher to pincher. While they remain far from Europe's tourist beaches for the time being, their impact on the environment is already a major cause for concern in the Arctic"."
And it involves lot of butter ...
I know that it is controversial with some dieticians, but I have had great success in keeping off the weight with the low-crab diet.
Lower the quotas, bring in a Red Lobster chain in Russia and Norway and problem solved. I hope.
Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
and so began /.'s transition from "news for nerds" to "news for marine biologists"
Russia has a raging case of crabs!
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Fortunately, this is an easy problem. You just have to flip the crabs over and then attack the weak spots for MASSIVE DAMAGE.
They should take a cue from Ancient Japan and flip them over and attack its weak point for MASSIVE DAMAGE.
I guess the guy was selling them weapons to kill all the sealife!
Yuri Orlov is the guy from Lord Of War
-- Sig: What sig? Oh, you mean this one? Nah...
In Soviet Russia, crabs get you.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
Research already showed that those guys are quite temperature-sensitive. It is rather unlikely that they will be able to leave the artic water and reach as far as Gibraltar.
I suggest the international community places an immeidiate and permanent moratorium on hunting crabs 'unless for scientific purposes'...
Soon Japanese fishing vessels will be serving up crab to Tokoyo's hungry cats and dogs...
Somebody will need to let Green Peace in on the secret though...
Despite the fact it is suggested in jest above, the best solution to most pest problems normally IS a culinary one. These crabs are definately edible, crab is considered somewhat of a delicacy to many (personally, I'm not a fan, but there are loads who love it), so all you need is to agree to remove quoats on this particular animal, or some similar arrangement, between Norway and Russia (the most challenging part) and start to push crab meat as a new big seller in the area.
1 61.500.html
New Scientist have an article on the subject of eating through invading species, although you'll need a subscription to read it: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18725
This is just another entry in the long list of 'we probably shouldn't have introduced this species into this environment' stories. Kind of like introducing Rabbits into New Zealand, or Foxes into Australia, or a myriad of other examples. They end up thriving and taking over, to the detriment of the various species that were already there.
Only according to someone who catches fish, not someone with any kind of credibility. I think you need some double-quotes in there:
Millions of King Crabs "Turn Sea to Desert"
Seems like a not-so-great situation with a not-so-easy answer now. Aren't nets/deep lines the main ways to catch crabs en masse? Sadly, I fear no answer will come to us, since we're nerds, not fishermen (unless fishermen have become the new nerds of the century).
"How will I ever get rid of my male jelly now?"
Well, someone had to say it!
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
A sea full of crab dessert... *drool*
The crabs weigh up to 12 kilograms (26 pounds) and measure up to two meters (6.5 feet) from pincher to pincher.
-and this increases every time the story is told.
sudo ergo sum
It doesn't matter so much. For various reasons, including elevated water temperatures, fish stocks are gone from the sea quite far north. The crabs have been encroaching on the regions containing the last commericial stocks. Even Bergen and Trondheim, which were once great fishing ports, are dead and tropic species are occasionally sighted in the waters.
With the quotas preventing the harvesting of the crabs, they are spreading more widely and more rapidly at an accelerating pace. Eventually the population will level off, but not before the last of the fish stock is ruined. The crabs pretty much wipe all organic matter from the bottom, especially tasty fish eggs. Without the eggs, there are no new fish. Without the fish, no fishing. Without the fishing, there will be no monied interests hindering oil drilling in the Barents.
The Norwegians are in a hard place because of the oil and their ties to the petro dollar. They also can't risk pissing of the last western military power, Russia, over the oil either. They will eventually lose that game, unless they deal with the crabs. Open season and no catch limits on the crabs would give several enviromental and economic boosts to the region. They're quite good eating and can be sold for food, decimating them would help the fishing, but the crabs are just as good as materials for biofuels.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Corrected: Millions of king crabs turn sea to dessert
Today's secret ingredient is: *dramatic pause* *dramatic pose* CRAB INFESTATION!
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
Very nearly as funny as Monty Python's 'killer joke.'
Moderation in All Things... Especially Moderation - gurutc
This reminds me to the story in the Frank Shatzing's book, The Swarm. Nice book actually, its like Dan Brown, but at least Frank has some idea about technology.
...to welcome our new crab overlords!
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
The Discovery Channel had a wonderful show on last season about these very crabs called The Deadliest Catch. It was definitely worth watching.
So what do the other 98% of the eggs become, if not crabs?
I for one welcome our new crab overlords.
One female crab can lay 500,000 eggs at a time, of which one or two percent will become crabs..
I read it many times in "why you should spam to develop your business"-style spam : "send 500,000 mails, if only one percent buy, you're rich."
So it worked for crabs !
What does it mean, "appended to the end of comments you post"
Caviar!
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I have the man for the job!
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Don't knock the Australian rabbit plague. Got rid of all that damned Trix cereal, yes it did.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Who would pay $800 to fight a giant enemy crab on screen, if you can do it probably cheaper IRL?
I wonder where their weak spot is.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
So with all these extra crabs we can now have imitation fish meat made with real crab.
We'll make it official: At least at the top of THIS particular food chain is a picture of a man wearing a bib, and in one hand he's holding a knife with a dab of butter?
So it's true that you can't get rid of crabs by drowning them. :( Back to the drawing board.
It should have said, "Millions of King Crabs Turn Sea to Dessert"... after all, they're grrrrrrrreat!
When I lived in Alaska, the ing Crab was pretty much over-harvested. Bottom fish, such as pollock, were then able to eat the small crabs before they became harvestable size. the Crab industry was in danger.
Now, we have a different situation in the Barents Sea. There are not enough bottom fish to keep the crab population under control. I think I see a possible solution here that would revitalize the fishing industry for Norway and other Northern countries....
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
crab battle!
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
The Great Lakes have been infiltrated with Zebra mussels. They clog water intake pipes, and eat so much microscopic food that native fish populations are suffering.
Sorry but, Tarrifa, Spain is the southern tip of Europe. Gibraltar isn't the tip of anything except maybe the Bizzar at Deva from the Myth novels...
"Sex is a very natural and wholsome thing, but only if it isn't done right." Welcome To Paradox
This one is kind of a tough one to tackle. First of while a single crab can lay hundreds of thousands of eggs at a time, ober 98% of the young will never survive. This is because when they hatch, crabs go through a neoplanktonic period. This means that the larva just drift around like little bits of plankton. This makes them prey to larger fish and perhaps even some zooplankton. Whether or not they can reach as far south as Gibraltar is unclear to me. They seem to be a very cold water type creature. I don't think that King crab have spread down to say Washington or Oregon (at least I haven't heard of it happening). This can be because of diffences in water temperature, or perhaps because of the direction of the currents which might prevent to larva from drifting that far. One of the things that we learn in the introductory level oceanography is that whenever a species in introduced, you run into some major problems. Once you reach the 400 level courses then the discussion becomes a little less black and white in some cases. There is a very small train of thought that in some cases, an introduced species can increase biodiversity in an ecosystem. One of the things that can happen when a species in introduced is that not only does that environment change, but also the species itself changes. I believe down in Oregon, a species of copepod from the western pacific had been introduced. It's moving up the Columbia river and is actually out performing the indigenous species. However you start to notice that there are some differences between this new species when it first arrived to the its present form, probably from cross breeding. Once we start moving into even smaller organisms, things get a lot more complicated. One of the things that we learned in Special Topics Ocean Biology is that the ocean is full of viruses that can create lateral gene transfer in organisms which can lead to the developement of new species.
They'd better contact Solid Snake, I hear he has experience with this type of thing.
CRAB BATTLE!!!!
CRABS on a PLANE !!!!!
CRABS on a PLANE !!!!!
CRABS on a PLANE !!!!!
No nutria. Just beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and seafood.
I get hungry when I visit the zoo. Tasting is prohibited I think.
Just yesterday there was a shitload of Norwegian hog-ridin' fools doing 50 in a 65 on I-25 through Albuquerque, New Mexico and I too was thinking about open season on selected tourists.
Here's one example of a water-based problem:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caulerpa_taxifolia
Most likely it was accidentally introduced into the Mediterranean by the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco. But the director at the time spent all his energy trying to convince the public that the Museum was not responsible for the release, instead of trying to stop the spread of the invasive species. So now its all over the Mediterranean, with no natural predators in the area.
When a few blooms of the plant showed up in California coastline, they took drastic measures to quickly eradicate it. They threw tarps over the affected area and injected chlorine under the tarps. Which killed everything, invasive or not. So far, they've successfully contained the outbreak in California.
The Gaia theory of how the earth self-regulates.
But, says Bertheussen, who is not authorized to catch crabs
Believe me son, lack of authorisation is not going to help at all.