Invasion of the giant crabs (edible kind)

[emad]

The UK's BBC reports that a shellfish released in the Arctic waters of the Barents sea in 1961 has taken a huge step to expand its range.
The species is the king crab, a native of the Bering sea and the area round Kamchatka in the Russian far east. It was brought to western Russia in a bizarre experiment to provide a new catch for the Soviet fishing fleet. Now, to the dismay of scientists, the crab has reached the Svalbard archipelago, an island group almost half-way to the North Pole.

The species can grow to 1.5 metres across (including its legs) and weigh up to eight kilogrammes, making it the world's biggest edible crab...... "For some years after their release in the Barents sea it looked as if the crabs had simply disappeared. Nobody heard anything about them until the late seventies. But during the nineties we had quite a big growth in the population in Russian waters"....

The crabs had already begun migrating westwards from the point where they had been released, off the Kola peninsula, with Norwegian fishermen starting to report catches in the 1980s.......

But they are known to be making progress southwards down Norway's west coast as well. Scientists think they are advancing at about 50 km (31 miles) a year, though that could be an underestimate.

more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3149782.stm

Marine sports DUers: so now you know where to book your next fishing vacation.......