Come to beautiful Nova Scotia on Canada’s east coast and catch crabs.
It’s a new project by Parks Canada to deal with the invasive European green crab.
Visitors pay $30, and get a bumpy 20 minute all-terrain vehicle ride down to the shore at Kejimkujik National Park then a rowboat ride out to buoys where the traps are, and then help to haul traps and remove the crabs.
Speaking to CBC reporter Brett Ruskin, Gabrielle Beaulieu, a project manager with Parks Canada said “Not only do they get to see it [the crab population] first-hand in the boats with us, but they can also help reduce the numbers of an invasive species that we’re having issues with,”
The crabs are believed to have travelled across the Atlantic in ships ballast, and while they may have been on the American east coast for many decades, their population seems to have exploded in the last few decades and they’ve moved north into Canadian waters.
They are destructive and voracious.
Part of the problem is they chop up the eel grass to get at food underneath. The eel grass is critical habitat for juvenile fish and other species to hide from predators while they mature.
Officials say the crabs are like clearcutters destroying the habitat for native species. The critters will also eat just about anything up to their own size. The damage to the eel grass however results in reduction of native marine species and also of shore birds which feed on things like soft shell clams.
Green crab can produce 175,000 eggs per year
Since 2010, Parks Canada has removed some 2-million of the creatures from the Little Port Joli estuary in Kejimkujik park. However, one crab can produce up to 175,000 eggs per year, so its an uphill battle
Food for some, fertilizer for others
The green crab is considered a delicacy in some countries like Portugal and Korea, but not here. The crabs caught here are killed by placing them in fresh water, then chopped up and used either as bait for lobster, or turned into fertilizer.
A Parks Canada scientist has said that if they can be developed into a food item here, it would really help to keep their numbers under control.
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