Love Dungeness crab? New study finds threat from climate change is coming
Dungeness crab, a favorite of seafood lovers and one of the most valuable seafoods in the Pacific Northwest, is facing notable population threats from climate change, a new government study has found for the first time.
The study examined thousands of Dungeness crab larvae from Puget Sound in Washington state and exposed them to seawater with acidity levels to match the current levels, the low levels occasionally found now, and markedly lower levels anticipated in coming years as fossil fuels put more and more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, much of which eventually settles into the world's oceans. Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle found Dungeness crab larvae exposed to mid-range and low levels of acidity have a markedly higher survival rate in various ways.
No other study has examined this, NOAA said.
"It's definitely a cause for concern,” said study co-author Paul McElhany. He said ocean acidification, which numerous studies conclude is already altering the very chemistry of the world's oceans, hinders survivability of Dungeness carb larvae and appears to hit "a threshold, not a continuum" at the mid-range level that, as the acidity level grows even worse, does not further decrease survivability.
The new Dungeness crab study will be thrust front and center in a Congressional presentation Thursday, May 19 in Washington, D.C. organized, in part, by the Ocean Conservancy. The Conservancy produced a video several months ago before the study examining the threat to the Dungeness crab fisheries that stretches from Central California, through Oregon and Washington, and into British Columbia and Southern Alaska. The study said the commercial Dungeness crab harvest in 2014 topped $176 million.
