Some people say they taste good, even though they are small and hurt our coasts
Some people say they taste pretty good, even though they are small and cause a lot of damage to our coasts.
Off the coast of Vancouver Island, European green crabs have been a problem for decades. Right now, conservation efforts focus on deep-freezing them and throwing them away, but some people say they should be eaten instead.
The species is found all over the Pacific Northwest. It is aggressive and eats shellfish like there’s no tomorrow. It has no natural enemies and reproduces quickly. Each woman can have as many as 185,000 babies at once.
Crysta Stubbs, director of the Coastal Restoration Society’s science department, said on CBC’s On the Coast, “One of our biggest worries is how they will affect eelgrass, which is an important place for young salmon to live.” “When they eat, they actually pull up the eelgrass.
“And when they’re young and can’t find other, more nutritious food, they’ll eat the eelgrass directly if they don’t have anything else.”
Listen to Crysta Stubbs, who works for the Coastal Restoration Society, talk about crabs:
Fisheries and Oceans Canada says that recreational and Indigenous people can get a license to catch shore crabs for food, including European green crabs (EGC), but commercial fisheries can’t sell them to people.
In a statement, the group said, “It is important to remember that green crabs are very invasive and pose a threat to native species and habitats.”
“Capturing, transporting, or using EGC for any reason, such as food, is risky because it could help them spread and possibly move into new areas.”
Fisheries and Oceans Canada said that it is currently working on a national plan for dealing with aquatic invasive species other than just throwing them away.
A high crab die
These green crabs are not just a problem on the West Coast. Fisheries and Oceans Canada says that the species came from Europe and North Africa and probably came to North America on wooden ships in the early 1800s. They arrived on the east coast of North America for the first time in the 1950s.
Since then, they have always been a problem for local species. In some places, conservation experts have even said that the crabs might make a good meal.
In fact, the New Hampshire Green Crab Project has put out a list of recipes for people who want to eat green crabs and help the environment at the same time. Green crab ceviche, fried rice, and pozole are some of the recipes in the book.
Gabriela Bradt, a fisheries extension specialist at the Sea Grant program at the University of New Hampshire, said that her department is looking for ways to make green crab trapping a profitable business on the east coast of the United States.
She said that could help reduce the negative effects of the crab population’s huge growth on the environment and help commercial fisheries. She also said that crabs are delicious.
“My favorite way to eat green crabs is to boil them like you would a blue crab or any other kind of crab and then pick out the meat. “Then I like to put some of that meat and the roe from the females into a bowl of ramen,” Bradt said.
“I have a really great friend who is a chef… She made salted green crab roe ice cream, which sounds very strange but was really good. She salted the crabs first, which is similar to fermenting, and then she took the roe and put it in vanilla-based ice cream. It almost tasted like toasted coconut.”
Where opportunity strike
Residents of Venice eat moleche, which are soft-shelled green crabs, twice a year. These crabs are a local species. Green crabs shed their hard shells in the spring and fall, but they must be cooked within hours, before the new shell touches water and hardens.
Part of Bradt’s work in New Hampshire has been to figure out if a soft-shelled green crab product could work in the U.S., especially since a pound of soft-shelled green crab can sell for between $73 and $88 in Venice.
Bradt said that it’s important to follow the same safety rules for crabs as for any other type of seafood.
In Canada, conservation groups catch thousands of crabs and deep-freeze them to kill them. After that, the crabs are thrown away or turned into compost.
The Coastal Restoration Society is storing the dead crabs right now so that they can try to find other uses for them, like as fertilizer. The group is working with the federal government and First Nations in the area, like the Ahousaht First Nation, to figure out how this could work in the future.
“What I would suggest is, if you want to put it that way, an opportunistic removal program. Have people target green crabs,” Bradt said.
“And if we have markets for anything, like food for people, food for pets, fertilizer, or anything else, let those markets grow and pay fishermen.”