Ipswich editorial: Green crabs – Time to chomp down on the threat

April 12, 2019 New England

They look so small and creepy, almost like tarantulas — about the size of a palm, with their legs and two front pincers wriggling. It’s hard to imagine the crabs could destroy a multi-million dollar local businesses and the 20,000-acre Great Marsh, spawning grounds for many local fish. But the green crabs can. More importantly, the voracious, invasive green crabs are. The crabs destroy both the Great Marsh — because they uproot the eel grass that anchors the marsh — and fisheries, such as the clamming industry, oystering and even lobstering because the crabs eat clams, oysters and juvenile lobsters. >click to read<14:07

Green crabs, Ipswich Shellfish Constable Scott LaPreste, Mary Parks and Thanh Thai, spawning grounds for many local fish, the Great Marsh, The Green Crab Cookbook

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The New England groundfish debacle (Part III): who or what is at fault? Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet

It took me a while to decide how to most accurately describe the situation that has been visited upon the New England fishing communities that are and since colonial times have been dependent on the groundfish fisheries.

NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?

While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here

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