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BLUE CRAB INVASION UPENDS ITALY’S CULINARY TRADITIONS AND ECOLOGY


THE BLUE CRABS CROSSED THE ATLANTIC AS STOWAWAYS, AND WITH NO NATURAL PREDATORS
THEY’RE OVERTAKING ITALY’S MARINE ECOSYSTEM.

7 min
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A container full of blue crabs in the port of Goro, Italy, about 100 miles south
of Venice. (Photos by Luigi Avantaggiato for The Washington Post)
By Jenn Rice
August 12, 2024 at 1:30 p.m. EDT

VENICE — Last summer, while sweating my way through the Rialto fish market, I
spotted a familiar sight from my North Carolina upbringing: Atlantic blue crabs,
labeled “granchio blu.” My Italian is not great, but I know gastronomy words and
a blue crab when I see one.

As it turns out, the crabs had probably crossed the Atlantic as stowaways in the
ballast water on barge ships, and they were first spotted in 2012 in Spain’s
Ebro Delta on the Mediterranean Sea. The crab’s excessive increase is a direct
result of climate-change-induced sea-level rise and extreme heat in the summer.
According to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, female blue crabs
produce up to 8 million eggs a year, and in Venice’s lagoon, they’ve became
unstoppable, disrupting the ecology — and economy.


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