Posted on 12/26/2004 8:29:16 PM PST by bayourod
You'd think that a country that has elevated snails and frogs to a delicacy wouldn't have a problem with some good ol' crawfish.
Yet France is struggling, not in the kitchen but out in the wild: Beaucoup crawfish are killing frogs, destroying sensitive wetland plants and generally wreaking environmental havoc.
The prolific Louisiana Red Swamp crawfish, which can lay up to 750 eggs at one time and can reproduce nine months of the year, is thought to have escaped into wetland areas of France in 1976. It's been downhill from there.
"The Louisiana crawfish eats all the aquatic plants in the marsh," said Jean-Marc Thirion, scientific adviser to Nature Environnement 17, an environmental group based in Charente-Maritime, a department on France's central Atlantic coast. "Without the aquatic plants, the water of the marsh is opaque and the sunlight can't pass through," making it difficult for aquatic life to survive.
The Louisiana crawfish is disrupting breeding areas for frogs and other amphibians, he said, as well as having more subtle effects on other wildlife.
"When the Louisiana crawfish is present in the amphibian laying site — pool, pond or marsh — we have observed different mutilations of amphibians: cut skin, leg amputations," he said. "When the Louisiana crawfish population is established after a few years in the same site, we note the extinction of amphibian species."
Even more troubling and far-reaching is the insidious revenge the crawfish is taking on its predators.
For instance, Thirion said, one scientist has reported malformed young in gray heron that have begun to feed exclusively on the crawfish.
Scientists in Spain have reported that astaxanthin, the reddish-orange pigment in the shell and body that gives the Louisiana crawfish its name, is turning the skin of baby white storks an orange color that could be disturbing to their parents, raising concerns about nesting success.
The pigment also is causing slight differences in the coloring of the legs and beaks of adult storks, scientists say. The vibrant colors of birds are used to attract the opposite sex, and the scientists are concerned that the differences could be affecting their long-term reproduction.
According to Catherine Souty-Grosset, a biologist at the University of Poitiers and a founding member of Craynet, a network of European aquatic crawfish researchers, the Louisiana crawfish has become the most dangerous of a handful of invasive species because it is spreading so rapidly.
It has been found all along France's Atlantic coast and throughout the basin of the Loire River, and is expected to spread along another half-dozen rivers in a few years.
Souty-Grosset says several proposals for exterminating the invader have drawbacks.
Chemicals able to kill the tough crawfish harm other species. Mechanical removal is labor-intensive and too expensive, and while commercial fishing seems to be catching on in Charente-Maritime, she said, transporting live crawfish out of the department is prohibited.
To comply with the law, put in place to prevent the spread of invasive crawfish, "the ideal solution is the transformation on the spot of crawfish into preserved products," she said.
ROTF....send em to me I et em!
Louisiana is destroying France? Talk about Napoleon's Revenge!
The irony is delicious.
Well, boiled and salted crawfish used to go nicely with beer, but the French are more into wine... tough luck.
That's o.k. Jean Francois, just put some Tabasco sauce on 'em. They're real good that way.
Sillyass Froggies.
:^)
crawfish etoufe.
They over looked one solution: Transplant enough of my good friends from Sout' Loosiana (pure blood Coon Asses) and they'll relieve them of their problems raitt now.
nothing beats a big pot of DADs and a loaf of sourdough bread and about a # of melted butter YYYUUUMMMM!!!!!!
Good thing they're Louisiana crawfish. They already speak the language. I garonteee.
Let me done toll you how we gonna solve dat de problem.
You go and toll Boudreax amd Gautreax dat de Frogs dun got to many of dem crawfish and gonna pay 25 dollar per sack (NO EUROS PLEASE) and deh be giving Zatarians Crab Boil for free, with all de Jax beer one two Cajuns can even be thinking bout drinking. END OF PROBLEM
Up yours frog slime!
http://www.angelfire.com/nt/Mac/images/crawdad.gif
Hey Justin, how you are??
It may be a problem if they begin to develop an orange color from eating the crawfish, but, if they do, so what? They can create some new fashions around this development, and perhaps start a worldwide trend. They are also inventive couturily.
Love it, we will prevail, a bug attack . L'audauce, toujours l'audauce!
Can Muslims eat them?
Perchance the French might be rude to them, because they don't speak their language. Perhaps they could export them to the Ivory Coast... I hear that crayfish love quagmires. In fact, I don't see why the french might learn the art of sucking their little heads... certainly more tasty than horse meat, and more succulent than a small wren. I can see it now: "The French Declare War on Crayfish". It's the perfect match; the French advance in war just as the crayfish does. And they have a similar smell, Yes! They have too much in common not to welcome them... maybe even vote them a deligate to the UN Security Councel.
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