Crabs are bulking up on carbon pollution that pours out of power plants, factories and vehicles and settles in the oceans, turning the tough crustaceans into even more fearsome predators.
That presents a major problem for the Chesapeake Bay, where crabs eat oysters. In a life-isn’t-fair twist, the same carbon that crabs absorb to grow bigger stymies the development of oysters.
“Higher levels of carbon in the ocean are causing oysters to grow slower, and their predators — such as blue crabs — to grow faster,” Justin Baker Ries, a marine geologist at the University of North Carolina’s Aquarium Research Center, said in an recent interview.
17 comments:
So how come I saw a 1/2 bushell advertised as a "special" in OC this past weekend for $125? Maybe someone has figured out how to sell the shells?
Good Lord. Disaster has befallen us. OMG.Send us money and we will make everything better! Nature doesn't know how to fix this.
So carbon is killing the Bay and the fish and crabs are getting bigger. For Gods sake, I can hardly get into a live oyster without an oyster knife. And, you are telling me the crabs are eating them. Give me a break. I know an octopus can open one because they have 8 testicles with suckers on them.
New movie: Killer Crabs.
8:54 TENTACLES. You really need to get that one right.
Finally we'll have some big, fat, juicy crabs this summer like we had in the sixties and seventies!
It was snowing last week, if no one noticed! I'm sure the crabs who do not hold office hours did. Here we are, duh.
Global warming has taken us! OMG! The idiots at large are still somehow held as "exspurts".
8:54...hope you were joking about the testicles! (Octopi have tentacles.)
Crab prices will grow right along with the crab.
oh, i thought my septic system was polluting the bay. after all i'm over 100 miles from there.
For gosh sakes, we wouldn't want to blame the size of the crabs on past good stewardship and conservation practices, now, would we? These killer crabs MUST BE ERADICATED!Except for the fact that there are no crabs at the all you can eat places because it was SNOWING last week caused by Global Warming!
I thought everybody could understand that!
what won't they think of to get us going green? maybe it's just not in oyster future to live out the life of this planet. maybe it's not the first & won't be the last to disappear from the planet. "GREEN" isn't going to help.
9:12
Hysterical.
Oh, how awful! Larger crabs!
I'm having a hard time believing we won't eat more than enough crabs to offset the oyster losses. It will be a nice change to not see the little ones on my plate. My father used to make us throw those back.
8:54...hope you were joking about the testicles! (Octopi have tentacles.)
April 8, 2013 at 9:20 PM
octopus
1758, genus name of a type of eight-armed cephalopod mollusks, from Gk. oktopous "eight-footed," from okto "eight" (see eight) + pous "foot." Proper plural is octopodes, though octopuses probably works better in English. Octopi is from mistaken assumption that -us is the L.
noun ending that takes -i in plural.
Obviously none of the former anonymous commentors have ANY environmental knowledge. I'm suprised no one blamed "those darn liberals." To be taken seriously, you really should think (or read) before you comment. The oysters are the main filters for the Bay. They die off and the water quality diminishes drastically, killing off all creatures. All food chains must remain in balance. But lets not let facts get in your way. Proceed....
Fact CO2 has been much much higher in the past and we are here today.
Fact CO2 is the best fertilizer known to man. The more there is the faster plants grow and the bigger they get. Sounds great to me.
Fact there has been no warming for the last 15 years while CO2 has been increasing.
Fact the Sun is the primary source of Global Warming as it goes through different cycles.
Fact we are emerging from the last Ice Age still thus the warming.
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