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.
The French reptiles are showing as much fight as their human neighbors did in 1940...
LOL, hell has frozen over and the pigs have flown from their roost; French Arkansas???????????? I know Louisiana territory and all that, but, but, no way! The only time Arkansans feel French is when they go into the local state liquor stor and ask for some Fussy Pussy wine.
I've bookmarked this thread and will post the recipe, and I'll give another that is also good.
French Arkansas, LOL!
How ya'll are??????? Miss him even if he was from Mississippi
I'm sorry, but did I miss something? How did the crawfish cross the Atlantic?
Send the Frogs some Louisianna raccoons to eat the Louisianna crawfish.
Crawfish PING!!
Ms.B
They are French frogs ie, they are small. The main food for our bullfrogs and other "rania" are guess what, crawfish on the hoof.
Living in the Great Lakes area, I see this as payback for the zebra mussel.
Oh. LOLOL. Well, I got a new tagline out of it.
In a pirogue!
To what?
Bwaaahaaahaaaa !! L0L Id bet the storks are quite happy to have the tasty treats! Birds love crawfish! What a BS article! Bwahhahhhaaahaa
LOL!!
Thought this might amuse you!
ms.B
ooohhhhh, I forgot about that, although they come out ahead; they can eat the bugs, we can't cook the mussels. Too much trouble to shuck.
If France doesn't like the crayfish invasion, just tell them its just a form of environmental multiculturalism. Their diversity is their strength. The crayfish have a right to be there, and whatever demands are placed on French resources and infrastructure will have to be accommodated. If they must raise taxes and go to a 25 hour work week, they will have to do so to show acceptance of the crayfish's right to exist. Besides, the crayfish are only there to eat the plants that french crustaceans don't want to eat. To show that America supports the French in their quest to assimilate the bio-diverse crustacean culture, we, the US, will send humanitarian supplies consisting of peppers and spices.
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