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.
Jeez, there crawdads.. just harvest em and eat em...
You eat Snails and Horse and smother everything ins sauce for crying out loud, its not like you french have discriminating tastes.
Yep, by everybody BUT the coonasses: they wear it as a badge of honor.
The benefit of a classical education in European history. Of couse its not fashionable these days to know a lot about old dead white men.
A friend of mine went to New Orleans back in the 70's. Came back with a T shirt that had the old "RCA" emblem on it with and explanation that RCA in reality meant "Registered Coon Ass". LOL
It was a hoot.
Good.
Are there any OTHER invasive species we can send them to aggrevate these vipers???
How abouot fire ants???
Killer bees??
Maybe diamond-back rattlesnakes.
How about a virulent grape virus?????
They might need a brush-up as cajun is a dialect of French whereas most of France speaks the Parisian dialect.
1. On'da foist day'a Christmas mah
Mawmaw gave'to me a Crawfish'dey
Caught in Arabi
2. In'da Christmas Picayune I seen it
Dere'n Section E, Tujaque's Recipe
3. On'da thoid day' a Christmas we
Stopped at McKenzie for Three French Breads
4. On the fourth day I said OK let's get a
Christmas tree Before'ya Drive Me Nuts
5. On the fifth day of Christmas we
stopped at A&G for Frrried Onion Rrrings
6. On'da sixth day'a Christmas we
stopped at K&B's for a Six Pack'a Dixie
7. Cemetery traffic got backed up to
Metairie at the Seventeenth Street Canal
8. On'da eighth day of Christmas me and
Rosalie Ate By'ya Mama's
9. On the ninth day of Christmas we drove
down Delery in'da Lower Ninth Ward
10. I used'ta be at Kaiser now I'm woikin
down'da street at'da Tenneco Chalmette Refinery
11. On the eleventh day at Vetran's
Highway try'ta cross the street with Eleven Schwegmann Bags
12. On the twelfth day of Christmas my
true love gave to me a Dozen Manuel's Tamales
Wottinell are the French doing having s3x in swamps, anyway?
LOL!
Equally true with any word inserted as:
"Apparently Louisiana (blank) are faster and smarter than French (blank)."
LOL!
And we added just enough exotica to our Acardian women to make them far more beautiful than the French women. Those big brown cow eyes are more powerful than the Enterprise's tractor beams.
The kids and I used to laugh our butts off when we'd hear that song. Especially on #6, who'd get increasingly drunk as the song went on - and would start slurring Dix Pack of Sixie.
Have the Frenchies surrendered yet? I see this as just another war the French are destined to lose.
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