By Gabriela Bradt
The European green crab, Carcinas maenas, is an introduced species of crustacean that is causing major economic and ecological problems from the Chesapeake Bay to Prince Edward Island in Canada. As their name suggests, these crabs are native to Europe and also North Africa. Green crabs have been making the US East Coast their home since the early 1800s, the first recording of a green crab being in 1817 on Cape Cod. It is speculated that their mode of invasion was through ballast water on ships coming from Europe and Norther Africa. Since 1817, they have been a persistent nuisance species, adapting to climate as well as a variety of different habitats including rocky shores, marshes and tidal rivers. Green crabs do have predators in North America, but their numbers continue to increase at such rapid rates that their predators are barely making a dent. The crabs on the other hand, make easy work of devastating shellfish beds, especially soft-shell clams and oysters
NH Sea Grant’s, NH Green Crab Project, is researching ways to control this invader especially as local ocean temperatures continue to increase. Rising ocean temperatures contribute to population explosions of green crabs and in recent years we have seen green crab numbers rise. The NH Green Crab Project is investigating the possibility of killing ‘two crabs’ with one stone – so to speak – by creating a demand and markets for whole soft-shell crabs (newly molted crabs are soft-not sharp and crunchy) and consequently creating an alternate source of income for interested fishermen. By figuring out the peak molting season, in New Hampshire, the NH Green Crab Project hopes to get these delicious delicacies into area restaurants and make a dent in the green crab numbers. While in no way is this approach a way for total eradication, it is potentially a method of reducing numbers of crabs enough to let biodiversity along Great Bay Estuary and the coast recover and thrive.
For more information please contact Dr. Gabriela Bradt, via email (gabriela.bradt@unh.edu) or call, 862-2033. For some recipes to try and to learn how to process both hard and soft-shell crabs please go to www.greencrabcafe.com by local seacoast resident Thanh Thai. Additionally, the non-profit Green Crab R & D has collaborated with Thanh Thai to produce a green crab specific cook book that is available for pre-order.
Featured recipe (shared with permission from greencrabcafe.com):
Oyster and Crab Shooter
Ingredients:
• About one 1 tsp cocktail sauce (store bought or home-made)
• 1 whole, freshly shucked, raw oyster and its juice
• A dash of Sriracha sauce
• ½ Tbsp of cooked green crab meat
(go to: How to Remove the Meat and Roe From a Cooked Crab)
• A few drops of lime juice
• 1 Tbsp of vodka
Putting it together:
Add ½ tsp of cocktail sauce at the bottom of a shooter glass.
Layer with the raw oyster and its juice.
Add the other ½ tsp of cocktail sauce and the Sriracha sauce.
Add the crab meat and drizzle with lime juice and vodka.
This blog post was provided by NH Sea Grant & UNH Cooperative Extension, proud partners of the Every Drop Alliance.
#EveryDropMatters
