Increased Carbon Emissions Creating Giant Crabs

An anonymous reader writes "A lot of things in America are supersized: our portions, our drinks and now, apparently, our crabs. New research reveals that crabs can grow much faster and larger when water is saturated with carbon.This means that as greenhouse gas emissions grow, so will these crustaceans."

Giant crabs?

[Dunbal]

Mmmmmm crab cakes.....drooool

Count Me Confused

[eldavojohn]

I've been crabbing in the Chesapeake and New Jersey for the past ~5 years once or twice a year using both pots and hand lines and haven't noticed any steady size increase to match the increase in carbon emissions. Not a lot of variance anyway when I hear the "daily biggest crab" winners at the outfit we go through (7.5" to 8.5"). You would think we would start hearing about 9" or 10" crabs if their size is increasing with carbon emissions. Anecdotal, I know but what I've seen first hand doesn't really line up with this.

Also, I tried to track down the original article from the Post and it didn't sound like it lined up with this article:

Under conditions with lower levels of carbon, two mud crabs polished off 20 oysters in six hours. But in the aquariums with higher levels of carbon, the mud crabs seemed confused.

They went over to the oysters, but they didn’t eat as many — sometimes fewer than half of what other crabs ate under normal conditions. Dodd scratched his head. “Acidification may be confusing the crab,” he said. The situation, he concluded, “is more complicated than you’d be led to believe.”

Ries said crabs might be getting loopy from all that carbon in their systems, depriving them of oxygen and putting them in a fog.

They're right about the Chesapeake being in trouble though ... a growing "dead zone" coupled with overfishing. Man, in the past six years fishing trips on that body of water have gotten very sorry. We're now going up to Delaware Bay ... it's a shame, I've donated to Save the Chesapeake but people around here are stubbornly against the EPA or any government regulation. There goes those natural resources I guess.

Next Study....

[TheCarp]

Ok so they grow faster, nice. They grow bigger? Awesome.

How about flavor? Are they more tasty when they grow bigger and faster? Why is nobody asking the important questions?

Re:Count Me Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Him alone? Of course not. Combined with the rest of the commercial and non commercial crabbers... ummm, yes? That's the fun thing about a public commons, since no one individual causes the problem, it's okay and rational for everyone to keep using up more!

Re:Count Me Confused

[h4rr4r]

His share of the responsibility is likely very low.

Shutdown the commercial operators and I bet the problem is solved. No one will do that though.

This is like charging a homeowner 100x as much as a farmer for water, then blaming the homeowner watering his lawn for water shortages. If you actually want to fix the issue you go after the bigger fish.

Re:Ok

[cayenne8]

Bigger crabs and lobster, and someone thinks this is a bad thing? I am going outside to rev my SUV for a while...

My thoughts exactly!!

My first thought on reading this was "Hey, there is an upside to this whole global warming thing". Why is it that anytime green house gasses, etc are discussed, that everything is gloom and doom?

Everything has balance, let's look at the good things for instance.

A softshelled crab that would fill a plate all by itself?

YUM!!