Insights From The Soft-Shell Crab Industry
Español | 中文 | हिंदी | Bahasa Indonesia
If you browse the menu at a seafood restaurant, you will likely notice “soft-shell crab” as an option. While these animals are marketed to consumers as healthy, protein-filled luxury items, the industry is causing significant harm to wild swimming crab populations.
This report reviews current problems and challenges associated with soft-shell crab production. The authors explore the global supply chain, trading methods, and whether aquaculture is an alternative to wild-caught methods. Although it’s written for a pro-seafood audience, aquatic animal advocates may find the insights helpful for their campaigns.
Soft-shell crabs are swimming crabs that fetch a higher price because they can be consumed together with their shell (also known as their exoskeleton). However, they must be captured and consumed during their “pre-molt stage” — in other words, prior to the hardening of their exoskeleton. The harder the exoskeleton, the less valuable the crab will be on the market.
Selling soft-shell crabs is a profitable enterprise. Online markets sell these animals for $3.50 to $10 per unit, and restaurants have been known to charge $75 or more for a single animal. The internet has increasingly been used as a primary trading tool, as it reduces distance and speeds up negotiations between global producers and traders.
Demand for soft-shell crab now exceeds supply. In keeping up with consumer demand, the authors claim that the industry is causing ecological problems. About 73.5% of commercial-scale swimming crabs are wild-caught, and most fisheries obtain crabs through trawling or trapping processes. Wild crab populations are also suffering from other impacts associated with human activity, particularly climate change, pollution, and commercial fishing pressure. As a result, exporting companies are increasingly struggling to obtain pre-molt swimming crabs. The authors argue that the industry’s dependence on wild-caught animals is unsustainable.
Aquaculture has been proposed as a viable alternative to wild-caught swimming crabs. However, current research suggests that it doesn’t solve all of the industry’s environmental problems, as many aquaculture systems still rely on wild-captured animals. Aquacultural production also puts swimming crabs at risk of pathogenic viruses such as the reovirus.
According to the authors, these factors combined with the high cost and the fact that hatching and rearing technology is still underdeveloped means that aquaculture can’t compete with wild-caught producers. To scale up crab aquaculture, the authors argue that it needs to become more efficient by minimizing cannibalism, improving crab nutrition, reducing disease, and developing more efficient cultivation technologies. Animal advocates should take note of these issues, as they also allude to serious crab welfare threats in the aquaculture industry.
The authors recommend that stakeholders such as researchers, regulators, and industry leaders collaborate to reduce some of the harms of the soft-shell crab industry. For example, they recommend developing fishing methods that would avoid bycatch. Ultimately, though, from an advocacy perspective, consumers should be aware that their soft-shell crab is not only an expensive menu item, but also a member of an overfished, ecologically sensitive population.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10499-017-0183-5