Ajaccio (AFP)
After the red lobster in May, scientists from the French laboratory Stella Mare announced Monday that they had succeeded in controlling the reproduction of the large Mediterranean spider, a "scientific advance" which should allow the preservation of this species.
These researchers succeeded in obtaining "more than 1,200 juveniles" (individuals not yet having their adult size, editor's note) of this "protected species" at European level, then to guarantee "the survival of more than 70%" of between them to date, announced the Stella Mare platform (Sustainable TEchnologies for LittoraL Aquaculture and MArine REsearch), a laboratory located in Biguglia, Haute-Corse, and dependent on the University of Corsica and the French National Research Center scientist (CNRS).
The individuals, which are between two and three centimeters tall and are over four months old, are currently being reared in the aquariums of Stella Mare "where they are already demonstrating their exceptional capacity for camouflage", the scientists congratulated themselves.
Endemic to the Mediterranean, the species "Maja squinado" was abundant in the 1950s and 1960s before the decline in stocks was so significant that it is now almost absent from certain areas of the Mediterranean, notably in the Balearics (Spain) , where it has been completely absent for more than 20 years, except around the island of Formentera where only a few specimens are taken each year, specifies the platform.
Photo released by the Stella Mare laboratory, October 18, 2021, of a juvenile Mediterranean spider Handout AFP
Since the end of the 1970s, the decline in yields has raised fears "of an exhaustion of stocks and of endangering the species".
Thus, in Corsica, the catches of Maja squinado halved between 2011 and 2019.
"This new breakthrough paves the way for methods of + restocking + and compensation for fishing activity in order to preserve the presence of the large Mediterranean spider", the scientists congratulate themselves, while "experiments to release individuals are already being considered ".
Economically, controlling reproduction of the large Mediterranean spider "could help stem the decline in catches in Europe due to overfishing".
Photo released by the Stella Mare laboratory, October 18, 2021, of a juvenile Mediterranean spider Handout AFP
For the red lobster, found on the Atlantic coast and in the Mediterranean, the control of reproduction, presented in May by Antoine Aiello, the director of Stella Mare, as "a major scientific advance", also opened the way to the preservation of the species, knowing that the catches recorded in the European Union have known "a continuous decline" of "more than 90% in certain areas" since the 1950s.
© 2021 AFP