Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
Kevin Zelnio is a Graduate Student Researcher at Penn State studying the ecology of hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. He raises awareness of the plight of the spineless through folk music.
A specially set-up and cleverly named company, CrabCo began an "experimental expedition" to test the feasibility of commercially harvesting two deep water crabs, the king crab and the red, or chaceon, crab. The aptly-named trawler Perseverance has pursuing these crabs for the past five days. But things did not go well.
We'd have liked to have brought in 1.5 tonnes as that's what we need [to make it viable]. However, after laying some 240 pots, on long-lines of 70 pots to a line over the past week in rough seas, the return was just 150kgs
Environment
Life Science
Comments
I don't see the crabs winning if there was none to catch. Or is there an abundance already seen in those waters?
Posted by: trog69 | February 2, 2008 7:01 PM
Given that just about every other large-ish deep-water organism I know of breeds very slowly, is there a reason to believe that these deep-water crabs are different? If they are not known to reproduce reasonably quickly, isn't it just another f***ing stupid idea to harvest them commercially, given that you can drive slow-breeding populations to the brink of collapse in just a few years?
Do they care? --No, wait, I don't think you have to answer that.
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | February 5, 2008 5:06 AM
You are right that "very other large-ish deep-water organism...breeds very slowly" including crabs (compared to shallow water crabs).
Posted by: CR McClain | February 5, 2008 6:23 AM