“The crab catches are really down, and what they’re getting have big lesions on them - lesions and fungal or bacterial infections.” “People are bringing in (crabs) that are really messed up,” he said. He said the deformities originally found on the shrimp and lobsters have eased up, but not on crabs. According to the Tampa Bay Times:ĭarryl Felder, a University of Louisiana biology professor, has been studying deep-water shrimp and lobsters as well as crabs caught in Louisiana’s Barataria Bay, which was inundated with oil. Other scientists are reporting harmful lesions and visible infections on blue crab. “The crabs lay their eggs out in the Gulf of Mexico, and it takes about three years for those crabs to mature, so if you think about it, we’re now three years after the oil spill, and if there was an impact to the eggs - if they were damaged out in the Gulf three years ago - it could be manifested just now because this is the time those eggs would be mature crabs,” Lopez said. Watts does most of his crabbing in Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, but he reported that the same holds true throughout the rest of the state.Ĭrabbers in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida are also complaining that catches have been down in 2013.ĭoes this drop in populations have anything to do with Deepwater Horizon? John Lopez, coastal sustainability program director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, is questioning whether the Gulf oil disaster could be the source of the problem.
“There are absolutely no crabs,” said Keith Watts, Crab Task Force representative for the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board. This is not unusual. Crab populations fluctuate widely–the species is very responsive to changes in its environment, such as unfavorable weather patterns or lack of fresh water flowing into its favored habitats during droughts.īut now, particularly in Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain, scientists and fishermen are worried. In the three years since the well was capped, crab populations have not seen a precipitous drop until recently, but dolphins have been dying in unprecedented numbers.įor blue crabs, 2012 was overall an average year in Louisiana, but the picture was mixed, with some places seeing declines while others saw an increase. But those at the top of the chain, such as dolphins and tuna, could get fatal “megadoses.” Tiny creatures might take in such low amounts of oil that they could survive, said. Photo: ChesapeakeBayEO.Gulf Coast residents were alarmed back in 2010 when the Times-Picayune reported that scientists had found specks of oil in blue crab larvae.
The blue crab’s critical place in the Gulf’s food web means a prolonged drop in its populations could have widespread repercussions.Ī juvenile blue crab is held near its nursery habitat. This tough little creature-whose scientific name Callinectes sapidus translates to “savory beautiful swimmer”-is a critical part of the Gulf’s food chain, eaten by a wide variety of species from the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle to the whooping crane to many, many different kinds of fish. Blue crabs are one of nature’s survivors.
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