The discovery of a disease-carrying Canadian lobster off the coast of southwest England has prompted warnings from a British fisheries agency that the creature could decimate that country’s own $50-million-a-year lobster industry.
The transatlantic visitor didn’t cross the Atlantic Ocean on its own. It’s suspected that the 30-centimetre-long Canadian crustacean — its claws held shut by elastic bands — was dropped overboard from a luxury yacht or otherwise escaped alive in the English Channel while being shipped overseas.
When the specimen was trapped recently along with several European lobsters, its presence along the shores of Devon triggered alarms from local fishermen because of the well-known risk of gaffkemia— a bacterial infection widespread among lobsters in North America — being spread to Britain’s disease-free population. The disease has no ill-effect on consumers eating lobster, but can severely reduce fishery productivity.
Tim Robbins, deputy chief of the Devon Sea Fisheries Committee, told Postmedia News that while Canadian lobsters are often just carriers of the gaffkemia infection,“European lobsters have no immunity to it. It spreads through cuts and damage to the shell. And lobsters fight a lot, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to spread.”
The Canadian specimen was tested and determined to have gaffkemia, which can give infected lobsters pinkish tails and leave them unnaturally limp before death strikes.
Robbins said there have been five other documented cases of a Canadian lobster being found in British waters over the past year, each of which had the potential to send the infection raging through the unprotected native population. In one case, said Robbins, a seafood shop owner in the south Devon town of Salcombe was storing live, imported Canadian lobsters in a sea water holding area. Several escaped and were later captured in a trap set by local fishermen.
One trawler captain told the Daily Mail this week that when he discovered a Canadian lobster in his trap,“I knew it was trouble. It could, potentially, wipe out our native stocks.”
The Salcombe shop owner was unaware of regulations prohibiting the return of any impounded lobsters to the ocean, said Robbins. That incident and the other cases of alien lobsters being found among Britain’s native lobster population have led the Devon commission and other agencies to issue warnings about the need to keep Canadian and American lobsters out of European waters.
Robbins said the Canadian lobsters are distinguished from their European cousins by their slightly greenish hue.“Ours are a bit more of a blue colour,” he said.
He stressed that the known examples of foreign lobsters entering British waters have resulted from“ignorance” and were “not malicious.” Education, he added, should improve the situation. But he said it’s not clear whether the disease has been transmitted to local lobsters.
“Five cases in a year is not an epidemic,” he said. “But that’s just five that have been caught by our fishermen. I’m not that naive — there are probably more out there.”
Postmedia News
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