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Home > Pacific Northwest News > Breaking News
Alaska King crabs studied at the Hatfield Marine
Science Center in Newport
Published: Friday, January 14, 2011, 8:01 PM
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Updated: Friday, January 14, 2011, 8:01 PM
By Lori Tobias, The Oregonian
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NEWPORT -- When it comes to Oregon and crustaceans, there's no doubt that Dungies reign. But
at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center, it's the Alaska king crabs that
are getting all the attention.
Since the king crab fisheries collapsed in the early 1980s, scientists have been trying to figure out
why it collapsed and how to bring it back. For three years, some of that work has been happening
on the Oregon coast where biologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
are studying hatchery-raised crab to see how they might increase their chances of survival should
they ever be released in the wild.
The crabs arrive at Hatfield when they are about the size of a small tick.
As they grow, scientists study them to learn about their preferred
habitat, how they behave around predators and in what conditions they
are most vulnerable and most likely to survive.
View full size
BEN
DALY/Alaska
Sea Grant
Alaska King crabs, such
as this juvenile, are being
studied at the Hatfield
Marine Science Center in
Newport as part of an
effort to see if the fishery
can be restored off the
Oregon coast. It collapsed
in the 1980s.
"Animals that grow up in hatcheries don't display normal behavior," said
Cliff Ryer, manager of the Fisheries Behavioral Ecology Program. "These
animals have never seen a fish, never seen much larger crabs -- (which)
are highly cannibalistic. Basically, the innate behaviors they might have
in the field have never been triggered when they grow up in hatcheries."
The task here is to figure how to give the crabs a refresher course in
survival.
"It's been done with salmon and other species," Ryer said. "Crabs are
lower down on the genetic scale. They not as possessed of the ability to
learn, perhaps, as some animals, but it's worth trying."
And how do you teach a crab survival skills? Simple. You train them.
OK, training may imply a bit more intelligence than the average crab
possesses, but scientists are taking a stab to see if it's possible to at
least condition them.
Last summer, Ben Daly, a research biologist with Alaska Sea Grant, worked with the king
crabs at Hatfield to see if crabs that had been exposed to halibut -- one of the crustacean's more
aggressive predators -- and cod fared better than so-called naive crabs.
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Alaska King crabs studied at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport | OregonLive.com
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Daly exposed some of the crabs to the predators for 48 hours; others were not exposed at all.
The crabs that were exposed had a better survival rate.
"They had a higher cryptic behavioral," Daly said. "They were hiding more. A lot of times, crabs
that weren't hiding would get eaten."
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There are no immediate plans to release the hatchery crab into the wild, Daly said. "Release is
still a long ways off. We need to do a lot more research to look at ecological impacts of releasing
hatchery crabs in terms of what genetic impacts could be."
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But if and when that time does come to put the crabs out to sea, the work here could be the key
to the crustaceans hitting the sand, er, running.
"We don't want to take a crab that is naive and put them in the ocean and have them gobbled up
by fish such that none of them are surviving," Daly said. "We want them to be able to survive."
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laurelwood
What's this?
January 14, 2011 at 5:09PM
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crabs r ppl 2
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fedupdoner
January 14, 2011 at 5:32PM
1/18/11 1:00 PM
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Well maybe if they put the stupid crabs in the water they'd get eaten by the fish and the smart
ones would survive and reproduce!
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shojayxt
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January 14, 2011 at 6:51PM
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Since the king crab fisheries collapsed in the early 1980s, scientists have been trying to figure
out why it collapsed and how to bring it back.
Stop overfishing? Just a thought.
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laurelwood
January 14, 2011 at 7:28PM
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Don't forget all the chemicals and toxins and trash from human activity. Also the significant,
indisputable impact humans have had on climate change. Poor crabs have nary a chance.
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Garden Home dweller
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January 14, 2011 at 8:04PM
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laurelwood, have you ever been to Alaska and out on the ocean there? I am not even
going to try to talk to you about your conceited thoughts that humans are so powerful
to be 'ruining' the planet.
Lets not go into the countless millions of creatures that are not on the earth today by
the earths choice, not theirs, or would that argument really upset your egotistical idea
that 'PEOPLE' are that powerful. The earth goes through cycles, some are as short as a
few years, others, [broader than our historical references allow] are at least 26,000
years. Do you read anything other than what 'certain people' want you to believe---if
your that insightful, that YOU KNOW humans are causing changes in the earth, than you
believe that your contributions to the Earths welfare are significant..right? YOUR wrong,
we are all 'parasites' on this earth, every living creature, and the Earth, in what ever
form it might take or become, will not be predicated by any human behavior, nor was it
predicated by any species that has been on the Earth before now, or will be on the Earth
in the future. I believe in my own insignificance and the significant fact that I can
change behavior only for me; to expect it of others or to 'demand' it of others is just
like forming a religious opinion then deriding everyone who didn't think like you thought
or acted like you act.
Look, try THIS experiment, go to Alaska, jump into the Bering Sea and see how many
fish, crabs and other creatures try to help you survive [apologies to Dick Van Dyke and
his porpoise friends]. OH, and point out the waste, toxins and chemicals. Drink your
beer and keep jumping on the bandwagons of those thoughts that make you feel
important and valuable. Just clean up after yourself and while your at it, study 'ancient'
history..not base your idea's on a bunch of scientists and others looking at data from the
last, say, 175-200 years...you call that scientific...remember that 'Science' is a fairly
NEW discipline, but you knew that 'right'? Your turn.
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January 15, 2011 at 6:45PM
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laurelwood help contribute to saving the earth and kill yourself so you will stop polluting
and expelling co2
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Alaska King crabs studied at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport | OregonLive.com
Dinoslayer
1/18/11 1:00 PM
January 14, 2011 at 7:35PM
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"As they grow, scientists study them to learn about their preferred habitat, how they behave
around predators and in what conditions they are most vulnerable and most likely to survive."
I can think of a couple experiments they should do, but will share just this one:
Put them in a big tank of water there in the lab, give them a few days to get used to it and all.
Then bring in a large, heavy fishing net.... you know, like the ones trawlers drag along the
bottom of the ocean floor. Take that net and drag it along the bottom of the tank just once.
Now trap all the little baby crabs and count them. How many of them are alive? How many
were crushed to death? How many were in the net when it was removed from the water?
Now for our next experiment.......
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Garden Home dweller
January 14, 2011 at 8:12PM
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dino, try the experiment of not eating. Now tell me about all of the food that you raise
for orphans and widows and that you drag your own plow through the fields. Sorry I am
feeling 'snarky' tonight, but why 'bring down' research here at OSU; because, of course,
your 'idea' is to tell everybody how bad drag line net fishing is..and it is bad and just
about nobody is able to do it in Alaska anymore..but YOU knew that right...maybe I'm
wrong, and you'll let me know if I am..I'll let you look up the rules and regulations....I
rode the bus today, so call me a dinouser!
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Dinoslayer
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January 14, 2011 at 10:07PM
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Garden... between your rant toward laurelwood and then myself it would take me the
rest of the night to reply to it all.... alas, so much crap, so little time.
But it would be my pleasure to show you a little of just how wrong you are about so
much.
When was dragging stopped? When did the crab population crash? What about the
fishing techniques that are used in international waters? Need I continue? Really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottom_trawling
There are many options as to what a human being can eat and last I checked crab is
not on the list of foods that must be eaten in order to survive. Poor argument... is that
all you've got?
Did I bring down OSU even once? No, you assume, and you know what they say about
assumption, right? My point had nothing to do with OSU, so you fail on yet another
point.
I'll love to give you a good work out over what you said to laurelwood as well, but I've
got better things to do than that.
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January 15, 2011 at 6:49PM
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if you had better things to do you wouldnt be replying to a news article online. did you
seriously just cite wikipedia? i think you're supposed to find credible sources in an
argument
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