Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Scientists have been left perplexed after billions of crabs and crustaceans reportedly disappeared mysteriously in the Bering Sea off the US state of Alaska in the last several years.
Ben Daly, a researcher with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), told US media outlet CNN the snow crab population shrank from about 8 billion in 2018 to 1 billion in 2021.
“Snow crab is by far the most abundant of all the Bering Sea crab species that is caught commercially,” Daly said. “So the shock and awe of many billions missing from the population is worth noting – and that includes all the females and babies.”
[...] “Environmental conditions are changing rapidly,” Daly told CBS News. “We’ve seen warm conditions in the Bering Sea the last couple of years, and we’re seeing a response in a cold-adapted species, so it’s pretty obvious this is connected. It is a canary in a coal mine for other species that need cold water.”
The sharp drop in their numbers forced the ADF&G last week announced the cancellation of the Alaska snow crab harvest for the first time ever in Alaska, the United States’ largest state.
It said that while there would be “substantial impacts” on harvesters, the department has to balance the impacts with the “need for long-term conservation and sustainability of crab stocks”.
[...] Jamie Goen, executive director of the Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers said some crabbers will be going out of business as a result of the cancellation.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday October 18 2022, @10:46PM (1 child)
They probably thought "You know what? Why are we even staying here? Them boat monkeys are coming and genociding our asses season after season! This shtick is getting old dude. Let's get the hell out of dodge this year."
(Score: 2) by bmimatt on Wednesday October 19 2022, @12:03AM
Precisely. They've got fed up with the 'reality' TV they were forced to participate in, while paying with their lives to do so.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by HammeredGlass on Tuesday October 18 2022, @11:18PM (1 child)
They must have emptied the waters off the coast of Argentina.
(Score: 1, Troll) by HammeredGlass on Wednesday October 19 2022, @12:11AM
https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-fishing-vessels-going-dark-off-argentina-waters-2021-6 [businessinsider.com]
https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/supply-trade/chinese-vessel-sunk-by-argentina-had-a-history-of-fisheries-incidents-abroad [seafoodsource.com]
(Score: 2) by oumuamua on Tuesday October 18 2022, @11:33PM (1 child)
maps, diagrams, first-hand accounts from crab boat PINNACLE
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2022/04/03/into-the-ice-a-crab-boats-quest-for-snow-crab-in-a-bering-sea-upended-by-climate-change/ [adn.com]
TLDR loss of sea ice messed things up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @01:32AM
The pics on that page are informative. I visualized snow crab pots as being about the same size as lobster traps. Crap - those crab pots could trap people by the half dozen!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by lars on Wednesday October 19 2022, @01:35AM
Lobsters have been moving away from New England and into Canada recently. They will keep going north it seems.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maine-lobster-climate-change/ [cbsnews.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Username on Wednesday October 19 2022, @02:02AM (4 children)
They migrated to a better area that is more suited to them.
How exactly is this idea perplexing?
Are they just going to build a bunch of fenced in areas so animals cannot leave and everything stays static?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday October 19 2022, @02:41AM
I remember an OH NOES!! regarding the central and western flyways. The geese are disappearing, whatever shall we do??
Er... no. Flyways aren't static; they wander around. They'd just moved over a few hundred miles, so now the geese are annoying different places.
And a whole bunch of said geese had noticed the new cornfields (thanks, ethanol-gas) and started overwintering in the north, why bother flying south when there's all that corn that needs gleaning?? We've now got a year-round population in south-central Montana, and their numbers double every year.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @05:28AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday October 19 2022, @03:34PM
7 billion is a large number of crabs and you might think that it would be easy to find that many carcasses. Except the Ocean is really huge and is more inhospitable at extreme depths than the vacuum of space.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2022, @08:06PM
They can't be found because they are being eaten by predators who previously couldn't exist at
the water temperatures these animals lived in.
Water warms up, predators come in and eat them.
(Score: 4, Funny) by coolgopher on Wednesday October 19 2022, @12:18PM
Sounds like they've turned into ghost crabs now ;)