Seen so many of these invasive crabs at the Asian supermarkets

[theking]

"Invasive blue crab wreaks havoc in the French Med"



In the waters of France's Canet-Saint-Nazaire lake, fisherman are fighting for their livelihoods.

The enemy: An invasive species of blue crab.

The crustaceans are wreaking havoc on the populations of eels, oysters and mussels, which are key for economic activity in the area.

Native to North American Atlantic waters, the crabs were brought to the Mediterranean in the ballast waters of commercial ships in 2017.

Since then, the population of the fast growing omnivores has been booming in the area.

Fisherman Yves Rougie was hoping for a net of eels - instead it is full of blue crab.

"Oh yes, before for eels like these, we were getting 10 to 15 kilos, or sometimes 40 to 50 kilos per fishing trip."

Whilst in the U.S. blue crab can fetch $90 per kilogram, there is little appetite for them amongst French diners - a kilogram is only worth a little over $2.

This means fisherman like Rougie can only sell a small percentage of their catch, with the rest being thrown away.

Local authorities have advised fisherman to keep catching the crabs as a way to control the population. But Rougie says this is an impossible task.

"A female blue crab lays 2 million eggs, that's huge. Even if only 5 or 8 percent hatch, their species can survive. And there's quite a lot of females, and I can tell you that eggs are now scattered around, so that's the problem. The problem is that they (government) should at least give us subsidies to work on this and eradicate them."

[DuMa]

These were my play pets while growing up in narleans.  They are infested over there.  Using other fishes caught off the rocks, we would tie a string and throw it back out there and pull these suckers in as they cling onto our lines.  They tasted great over a fire.  Actually, everything tasted great over an open fire, especially when you are hungry out there while playing tom hanks as survivor game of the castaway. 

Fishermen in the southeast tends not to go for these crabs since they have little value.  While catching our shrimps, we tend to catch a few basket of these as well and depending if we have a need for them, we'll just throw them back.  The area where we dock our boat is the property of this guy I remembered they calling him Paul.  Paul was nice enough to let my uncle dock at his dock and in exchange for a basket full of these crabs.  Paul was a big heavy white guy so like fat kids like cake, he loved to eat them crabs. 

There are 3 types of commercial fishermen in narleans that I know of.  The shrimper and the tuna fish guys.  The third group is reserved for cajun rednecks.  They get yearly permits for a 30 day opener to catch and harvest alligator.  They get payed by the length and not the pounds of these gators.  They would bait them and while wrestling them on the line, they would shoot them gators in the head with a rifle gun.  The job was so easy that even women can do it themselves.  They have a documentary about the lives of these rednecks in the cajun bayou.  Pretty interesting.  You can tell they are uneducated and their careers are being passed down from generations to generations. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CrW2ZPhduM

 

[DuMa]

These were my play pets while growing up in narleans.  They are infested over there.  Using other fishes caught off the rocks, we would tie a string and throw it back out there and pull these suckers in as they cling onto our lines.  They tasted great over a fire.  Actually, everything tasted great over an open fire, especially when you are hungry out there while playing tom hanks as survivor game of the castaway. 

Fishermen in the southeast tends not to go for these crabs since they have little value.  While catching our shrimps, we tend to catch a few basket of these as well and depending if we have a need for them, we'll just throw them back.  The area where we dock our boat is the property of this guy I remembered they calling him Paul.  Paul was nice enough to let my uncle dock at his dock and in exchange for a basket full of these crabs.  Paul was a big heavy white guy so like fat kids like cake, he loved to eat them crabs. 

There are 3 types of commercial fishermen in narleans that I know of.  The shrimper and the tuna fish guys.  The third group is reserved for cajun rednecks.  They get yearly permits for a 30 day opener to catch and harvest alligator.  They get payed by the length and not the pounds of these gators.  They would bait them and while wrestling them on the line, they would shoot them gators in the head with a rifle gun.  The job was so easy that even women can do it themselves.  They have a documentary about the lives of these rednecks in the cajun bayou.  Pretty interesting.  You can tell they are uneducated and their careers are being passed down from generations to generations. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CrW2ZPhduM

Did I say I know only 3?  Make that 4.  The crawfish fishermen.  In narleans and near my place, during the annual run, we catches them by the big bucketful.  There goes this stretch of hwy to Slidell LA11 or highway 11, it is an elevated road with both sides have water.  So on an annual crawfish migration, they would crawl slowly from one side to the other side.  During season, the whole road is filled up with dead crawfish as cars and trucks would smash them.  Imagine bugs hitting your car while driving during bug season.  It is that many.  So then we would pull up to the side and you see them on the grass just hanging out.  It was easy harvest. Like hunting for Easter eggs but a lot easier. 

It was an annual thing and a tradition with us Narleans folks.  We live in a small town filled up with refugee living in project apartments.  Behind our apartment is a body of water that holds gators and deadly water moccasin.  Walk  2 miles away and you reach paradise, the inlet of the gulf of mexico's salt water where fishing was plentiful and exotic critters to be captured.  During low tide, the adults would swim out and can harvest oyster.  Paradise I tell ya. 

I went on google map and start driving over there and saw my old bayou and what not.  Thinking back, what the hell were we kids thinking?  Gators infested swamp and deadly snakes galore, what were we thinking but hey, it was life and not knowing any better, it was the daily norm, kinda like how these gator hunters are living their lives. 

[theking]

Nice story, thanks for the share!

[DuMa]

Nice story, thanks for the share!

Invasive does not mean poor quality.  If you see them blue crabs but the meat is soft shell crabs, buy it and find the viet recipe to saute it.  So good.

If we have them blue crabs here in California, I don't think they will be a hit either since everyone got their eyes on the better prize, them dungeness crabs.