Comments on: England Has Crabs http://www.blahstuff.com/oldstuff/2006/02/08/407/england-has-crabs/ A weblog about stuff and junk by Jake Sutton Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:30:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Jake http://www.blahstuff.com/oldstuff/2006/02/08/407/england-has-crabs/#comment-2388 Jake Wed, 08 Feb 2006 21:44:43 +0000 http://www.blahstuff.com/oldstuff/2006/02/08/407/england-has-crabs/#comment-2388 And that's one of the many reasons we love having you around Jenn. And that’s one of the many reasons we love having you around Jenn.

]]> By: Jenn http://www.blahstuff.com/oldstuff/2006/02/08/407/england-has-crabs/#comment-2387 Jenn Wed, 08 Feb 2006 20:05:12 +0000 http://www.blahstuff.com/oldstuff/2006/02/08/407/england-has-crabs/#comment-2387 England's actually had crabs since the 1970s :-). They're just worried about the likelihood of an impending population explosion like the one that occurred in Europe. Also, the report is simplifying things a bit. There is a tendency to try to attribute an invasion to a single vector (in other words, blame it on the ballast). The reality is that invasive species typically have more than one pathway into a new place. I'm sure ballast is important here but also it is likely people were (are?) importing the crab to breed/eat them. We've got Chinese mitten crabs in the US too, in case you are interested here are <a href="http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-i=1&sp-q=mitten crab&sp-a=sp1002689f&sp-p=all" rel="nofollow">links to related stories</a>. England’s actually had crabs since the 1970s :-). They’re just worried about the likelihood of an impending population explosion like the one that occurred in Europe. Also, the report is simplifying things a bit. There is a tendency to try to attribute an invasion to a single vector (in other words, blame it on the ballast). The reality is that invasive species typically have more than one pathway into a new place. I’m sure ballast is important here but also it is likely people were (are?) importing the crab to breed/eat them.

We’ve got Chinese mitten crabs in the US too, in case you are interested here are links to related stories.

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