Intrepid travelers
When leaving a port, ferries or cargo ships fill their holds with water to maintain their balance - this is called ballast.
But at the same time, they also embark algae, micro-organisms or even fish eggs: in short, a whole ecosystem that will be rejected in the port of arrival.
The blue crab is one of the 900 traveling species that have taken up residence in the Mediterranean, to the detriment of local biodiversity.
With climate change and a warming sea, it is proliferating.
Fishermen to the rescue
The blue crab has only one “super predator”, explains Christophe Guinot, fisherman in the Leucate lagoon: it is the octopus.
But this animal eats everything in its path and leaves behind a desert of biodiversity.
A female can carry more than 2 million eggs and reproduce several times a year.
If nothing is done to remove them, a real colonization is underway.
What if we men ate the blue crab, as we do in the United States?
The main weapon of struggle would then be fishing.
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