Millions of King Crabs Turn Sea to Desert 175
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"."
I have the solution! (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obligatory (Score:1)
"Crab people, crab people, taste like crab, talk like people." [wikipedia.org]
Re:Obligatory (Score:2)
Re:I have the solution! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I have the solution! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I have the solution! (Score:5, Funny)
That's a funny joke if you forget that the only other country in the world who do commercial whaling is indeed Norway. Actually, in Norway we hunt and kill primarily animals that other countries try to preserve, such as whales, seals, wolves, bears, etc.
In related news, I expect the season on driving-in-the-middle-of-the-road-in-a-huge-ass-RV -at-20-mph German tourists to open in late August. Apparently they have to see ALL the nature we have here in order to get a decent ROI on their vacation. Taking into an account that gas costs more than fine wine here, you can't really blame them, though. And by "wine" I mean "blood wine". Made from whale blood. Or puny tourists. Kaplah!
What a coincidence! (Score:2)
A good way to lose weight (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A good way to lose weight (Score:2)
That diet's a scam, I tell ya!
Lower the quotas (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:2)
The larval stage of a politician is a lawyer.
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:4, Funny)
Nah, they just need a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on crab meat.
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:5, Funny)
Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:2, Funny)
No wait. For that to work, I think it would have to happen in the Japanese Sea...
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:2)
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:5, Funny)
Jesus. We want to wipe out the crabs, not the Russians and Norwegians.
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:5, Funny)
Which shows the inevitable logic of environmental degredation, in which, like the old woman who swallowed a fly, every solution is a problem in its own right.
To wit:
(1) Introduce massive crabs to artic as food source.
(2) Get overrun by crabs, and introduce an American food chain to, in effect, predate on them.
(3) Demand for butter soars, bringing into the market additional dairy farm capabilities (which have environmental impacts in their own right).
(4) Increase in butterfat consumption results in a raging epidemic of obesity.
(5) Obesity epidemic leads to SUVs, lowered capacity on transportation like planes
(6) Larger, lower capacity vehicles cause energy consumption to soar.
(7) Rising energy prices lead to increased exploitation of arctic energy reserves.
(8) Environmental impact from petroleum extraction finally solves the King Crab problem, but you're still left with a fat, butter scarfing populace.
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:2)
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:2)
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:2)
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:2)
Eat an environmentalist, save a housing project...
Re:Lower the quotas (Score:2)
HHGTTG > *
Just Like My Ex-Girlfriend (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just Like My Ex-Girlfriend (Score:1)
Re:Just Like My Ex-Girlfriend (Score:2)
(Note: the above is purely in jest; everyone knows
Crab problem? (Score:4, Funny)
Lord of war (Score:5, Funny)
Yuri Orlov is the guy from Lord Of War [imdb.com]
-- Sig: What sig? Oh, you mean this one? Nah...
Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2)
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:5, Insightful)
Initially introduced species thrive and go through a growth explosion. After some time their growth drops and they stabilise at some level or even die out to a near extinction. There are multiple reasons for this. First of all nearly all introductions are done with a limited gene pool. If fresh blood is not introduced, problems from inbreeding will quickly erode the invaders advantage. For example the Rapana when introduced in the early 1970s in the Black Sea seamed invinsible. By mid 1990 it nearly disappeared.
Even if the invader "vitality" is not lowered by inbreeding, the ecosystem still balances itself. Diseases adapt to new targets. Predators adapt to new victims. Life goes on until a new equilibrium is reached. End of the day invaders usually wipe out only species with which they are in a direct competition and which occupy the same ecological niche. Off the top of my head I cannot think of anything which occupies the same niche in the Arctic. Further south they will have to fight it with the common lobster. This will definitely suffer.
Dunno, I have seen two such "doom" events in the Black Sea with the introduction of Rapana and Yellow Sea algae and they both came to pass. So will this if we do not poke it at the same time.
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:5, Interesting)
Australia is living proof that these doomsday population explosions CAN AND DO HAPPEN.
Just because it hasn't happened yet in the Black Sea doesn't mean it won't. Such logic is dangerous, and needs to be taken with a *huge* grain of salt.
It's better to err on the side of caution. If you do so, the worst thing that could happen is that the crabs get fished into extinction in the region, and we end up being no worse off than when we started.
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2)
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2, Troll)
Yes, we all live in fear of the cane toad bringing a sudden end to civilization in an orgy of, well, cane-toady-ness. Not to suggest that the tired, overhyped hyperbole-laden whinging about "doomsdays" and such might be overstating the danger somewhat....
Max
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2)
It was actually a term [wikipedia.org] coined by mathematicians -- population models for species that are allowed to reproduce with no limits or caps to their population or abilities to reproduce until 'doomsday' -- that is, until
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2)
I'm reallly not worried about a neo arctic luxury food that is really easily caught.
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2)
You have to take into account the size of the ecosystem as well. The smaller it is, the lower the "elasticity". Small, closed environments like lakes, islands, separated habitats with uniquely evolved life forms are quite prone to extinction events. There are plenty of examples like the New Zeland prehistoric giant eagle, Moa, the Dodo on Mauritius, so on so fourth. Once again, these are all relatively small ecosystems where the initial expansion can cause full extincti
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2)
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2)
Not enough time to reach new equilibrium in a large aquatic ecosystem by all means. It took 30+ years for the Elodea plague to settle and European riverways to reach new equilibrium in the 19th century. In the places where a boat could not move like the river Cam you cannot see a single plant now.
Similarly, the algae blooms in the black sea with the Yellow Sea algae strains took nearly 20 years to settle (and are in fact still settling, though there is obvious improvement compared to th
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the Cane Toad [wikipedia.org] problem in Australia is not recent. I was astonished when it showed up as 'news' on slashdot recently. I remember watching a documentary [imdb.com] about the Cane Toad menance back in the late 1980's.
Re:Zebra mussels in the Great Lakes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2, Interesting)
Todd
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2)
Crabs == oil (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Crabs == oil (Score:4, Funny)
At my local grocer, I can buy a pound of king crab when it's on sale for around $20. I figure a 55 gallon barrel of these guys would weigh close to 500 pounds. Barrel of Sweet Light Crude goes for about $70. Barrel of Sweet Light Crab goes for $10,000. Hmmm... Is there some secret crab cartel, the Alaskan subsidiary of DeBeers, or maybe the Illuminati, arti-fish-ally controlling the market of my favorite crustacean?
Re:Crabs == oil (Score:2)
Re:Crabs == oil (Score:4, Informative)
I think the point was that he wants to eat them.
I know I do. They're delicious.
Re:Crabs == oil (Score:4, Funny)
Man (to Waitress): Morning!
Waitress (In drag as a bit of a rat-bag): Morning!
Man: Well, what've you got?
Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and crab;
egg bacon and crab; egg bacon sausage and crab; crab bacon sausage
and crab; crab egg crab crab bacon and crab; crab sausage crab crab
bacon crab tomato and crab;
Vikings (starting to chant): Crab crab crab crab...
Waitress:
beans crab crab crab...
Vikings (singing): Crab! Lovely crab! Lovely crab!
Waitress:
Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with
truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and crab.
Wife: Have you got anything without crab?
Waitress: Well, there's crab egg sausage and crab, that's not got much crab in
it.
Wife: I don't want ANY crab!
Man: Why can't she have egg bacon crab and sausage?
Wife: THAT'S got crab in it!
Man: Hasn't got as much crab in it as crab egg sausage and crab, has it?
Vikings: Crab crab crab crab (crescendo through next few lines)
Wife: Could you do the egg bacon crab and sausage without the crab then?
Waitress: Urgghh!
Wife: What do you mean 'Urgghh'? I don't like crab!
Vikings: Lovely crab! Wonderful crab!)
Waitress: Shut up!
Vikings: Lovely crab! Wonderful crab!
Waitress: Shut up! (Vikings stop) Bloody Vikings! You can't have egg bacon
crab and sausage without the crab.
Wife (shrieks): I don't like crab!
Man: Sshh, dear, don't cause a fuss. I'll have your crab. I love it.
I'm having crab crab crab crab crab crab crab beaked beans crab crab
crab and crab!
Vikings (singing): Crab crab crab crab. Lovely crab! Wonderful crab!
Waitress: Shut up!! Baked beans are off.
Man: Well could I have her crab instead of the baked beans then?
Waitress: You mean crab crab crab crab crab crab... (but it is too late and
the Vikings drown her words)
Vikings (singing elaborately): Crab crab crab crab. Lovely crab! Wonderful
crab! Crab craa-a-a-a-a-ab crab cra-a-a-a-a-ab crab. Lovely crab!
Lovely crab! Lovely crab! Lovely crab! Lovely crab! Crab crab
crab crab!
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Unlikely to reach Gibraltar (Score:2)
The solution (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:The solution (Score:4, Interesting)
The best I can find about it is: http://www.nutria.com/site9.php [nutria.com]
my supermarket is lame :-( (Score:4, Funny)
I get hungry when I visit the zoo. Tasting is prohibited I think.
Re:The solution (Score:2)
Mmmm-mmm, thems good eats.
Re:The solution (Score:2)
Always a bad idea (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Always a bad idea (Score:2)
Why is that necessarily bad?
Re:Always a bad idea (Score:2)
It isn't necessarily bad, but it could result in a massive population reduction of other species...
... including Homo sapiens.
Maintaining what has been the status quo for thousands of years is seen as being much less likely to have that kind of effect.
Re:Always a bad idea (Score:5, Informative)
In certain conditions they populate so quickly you'll end up with a plague. The munch on all available grass and low level plants. Just leaving sand and soil behind. This valuable topsoil then gets blown away by wind or the occasional storm. Their burrows collapse and cause further run off problems after storms. Much of Australia doesn't have huge trees to bind the soil together. That's just one aspect.
It only took a few rabbits too. Released just near Melbourne. Now they're all over the place.
Mice (at times), Cane toads, Crown of Thorns starfish are all big problems. Foxes are a concern, but not on the same scale, or is that Tassie only? Domestic and stray cats are just as bit a problem in outer suburban/semi-rural areas, going after the native birds and small animals.
All systems will find an equilibrium. Trouble is, that (nearly) isolated systems such as Australia don't have the natrual competitors for introduced species. They would form over time, just not in the short term that we live in and see. Foxes were introduced to try and get the rabbits, Cane Toads to get the Prickly Pear. They just caused thier own problems.
Re:Always a bad idea (Score:2)
fly...
spider...
mouse...
cat...
dog...
cow...
horse...
She died of course.
Silly rabbit (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Always a bad idea (Score:3, Interesting)
The decision to use rodent specific biological warfare (rabbit specific viruses and diseases) is debatable. However, one thing is certain - the rabbits and the viruses/diseases were all "contained" within the continent of Australia.
Using biological warfare against these crabs would be a very bad idea. Oceanic currents would easily carry any bacteria/virus/agent all over the oceans of the world. Non-invasi
Re:Always a bad idea (Score:2)
It was introduced to control another introduced species: rats. Why they thought the already-proven solution of cats was too primitive for them, who knows - but the grand stupidity of the attempt is that rats are nocturnal. Mongooses are diurnal. The two species never met.
So now there are rats and mongooses in Hawaii.
That example just proves to me that humanity really, really needs to learn ecological engineering, b
Desert? (Score:3, Insightful)
Millions of King Crabs "Turn Sea to Desert"
How do they catch them then? (Score:1)
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).
Re:How do they catch them then? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How do they catch them then? (Score:2)
Re:How do they catch them then? (Score:3, Informative)
You can do this yourself off the coast of many places in the U.S.; all you need is a) a boat (a small boat will do, such as a speedboat); b) an open-topped cage or metal basket; and c) chum (fish heads, fish guts). The fish heads/guts go into the 'pots', usually on hooks so they don't come loose. The pots are attached to ropes (anything that doesn't rot), and the ropes are attached to small buoys. You lay a dozen or so p
Re:How do they catch them then? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How do they catch them then? (Score:2)
Why Must I Be A Crustacean In Love (Score:2, Funny)
Well, someone had to say it!
Re:Why Must I Be A Crustacean In Love (Score:3, Funny)
HUGE! (Score:5, Funny)
-and this increases every time the story is told.
Re:HUGE! (Score:2)
"[T]he crabs can grow to 22 pounds (10 kilograms) and measure 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) across . .
Re:HUGE! (Score:2)
Error in the original post (Score:2, Funny)
It's Iron Chef time (Score:4, Funny)
Deadliest Catch (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Deadliest Catch (Score:3, Informative)
As a country seemingly lacking in AVAILABLE natural resource(oil in Siberia under miles of permafrost in inhospitable conditions isn't available), this could be a boon for the Russian economy. Also, with the introduction of crab quotas, there are a lot of out of work crab boat captains and crew in Alaska. Since they run so close to the Pacific side of Russia, I think most of them would be ok with "fishing" the Barents Sea.
The downside is that t
Re:Deadliest Catch (Score:2, Informative)
Russia is the third largest oil producer in the world.
To get to the Barents Sea from Alaska, you would either have to sail south past California and Mexico, through the Panama canal, through the Gulf of Mexico and north accross the Atlantic past Iceland; or walk accross the Artic Ice; or sail across the Pacific, South past the Philipines, aroun
500,000 eggs at a time (Score:3, Funny)
So what do the other 98% of the eggs become, if not crabs?
Re:500,000 eggs at a time (Score:2)
Re:500,000 eggs at a time (Score:2, Funny)
It's not often you see these two words together but 'scary omlette'.
In Russia? (Score:2)
Re:500,000 eggs at a time (Score:3, Informative)
So.. what we need.... (Score:2)
I have the man for the job! [internationalhero.co.uk]
This is a blessing, not a curse! (Score:2)
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....
CRAB BATTLE (Score:2)
Re:ok... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:ok... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Gibraltar, the southern tip of ??? (Score:2)