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December 26, 2009

Gettin' Crabby

Global Warming Will Also Melt The Butter


While allowing my holiday meal(s) to digest, I browsed my Favorites Library and deleted a couple years of news items. I recalled my pleasure at THIS one, because I love crabmeat, and not the stringy shreds known as Snow Crab that you buy in the canned-fish aisle of the Pig Out Supermarket for $89 for a 4 oz can.

Owing to global warming in Antarctica, which (see the link) is apparently harmless to penquins, whales and fish, predators like crabs and sharks are sneaking back into Antarctic waters for a "Smorgasbord" of the hapless bottom dwellers that have flourished there since crabs and sharks were chased away by the cold 40 million years ago.

King Crabs, especially, hate the cold. Magnesium dispersion is difficult for a crab in cold water. He gets high, probably wears a periwinkle shell on his head, then drops deader than a Democrat's conscience. But warm water produces a perfectly healthy, sober crab with a day-tripper to an Antarctic buffet.

And sharks have their own problems with cold water. One is chemical, which bears a damaging relationship to water temperature (cold is bad); another is that sharks need to move, move, move, which is hard to do in cold water. (I question this, because a large shark enthusiastically nudged my leg in 56 F shallow water off the coast of Maine once, then hung around for a while. He seemed perfectly happy).

In any case, when Antarctica warms up, sharks and crabs will chow down like Goomba and DC on a budget Carnival Cruise. When those two blitzkreig the shrimp mounds, beware of undertow and tail shrapnel.

But Confusion reigns! A third specimen of famished shark, the Spiney Dogfish, is the subject of much confusion by the fishologists who study these things. According to the link, the "virtually global" Dogfish will be the scourge of Antarctica when the water warms, but an imbedded link in the same article states that they're disappearing and endangered...and add to this befuddlement this: the lack of ice will allow the Orcas to massacre the Spiney Doggish. You decide, because the "science" can't. My pet Spiney Dogfish won't answer my questions, either. As for the King Crabs, sharks eat them too...but, so what?

Finally, someone tell me why Antarctica has been free of sharks and King Crabs for 40 million years. Warming and cooling is cyclical..right?

14 comments:

Steve: The Lightning Man said...

And yet no mention of warmer water affecting Maine lobster, which thrives in colder waters? And if you were in the water in Maine and it was 56, then it HAD to be the dead of summer!

I remember jumping off a dock in summer of 84 into water so cold that it sucked the air outta my lungs; I don't think I was 100% wet yet when my ass flew back up onto that dock, and I never went in the water in Maine again. Ponds, yes, but coastal water, no.

Rhod said...

It was August, Steve, and the waters on the north shore of Mass were no warmer.

banned said...

We get the same crap pseudo-scince dressed up as News here Nickie

"Birds from the Continent are spreading across Britain because of climate change, according to a new report."
Britain has suffered massive declines in many garden and farmland birds...more exotic birds may arrive in the future as temperatures rise further. Birds that have been re-introduced into the country have also thrived ...

It blames all the change on climate change yet also mentions massive conservation efforts, habitat loss and changes to our countryside.

Must have been a slow news day at UK Daily Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6872249/Little-egret-arrives-in-Britain-thanks-to-global-warming.html

Anonymous said...

Rhod, I was just sitting down to a plate of buttered Spiny Dogfish and a bowl full of littlenecks when I happened upon your post.

What a load of codswallop! The Spiny Dogfish migrates in a rhythmic serpentine fashion (Imagine DC leading a conga line after numerous visits to his patented 10-gallon hat flask). Some of the Spiniest Dogfish have been discovered basking at the mouth of the Amazon, ice-skating on the Zeider Sea and, in one recent occurrence, openly breeding on the banks of a creek in rural Nebraska.

Spare me any more opinions from "Climate Experts".

Jim said...

Codswallop goes best with beet soup and potato latkes.

Unfortunately the predators that used to control the Spineless Dogfish are now an endangered species. Because of this the Spineless Dogfish has spread far beyond its usual habitat of beatnik cafes, hippie communes and liberals arts teacher lounges and now infests the US Congress.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget Network Newsrooms, James.

Rhod said...

Banned, the English Spiney Sparrow is thriving over here.

Nick, I was rapt at your last lecture at the Mystic Aquarium on the Dogfish. Your de-boning and pseudo-sushi suggestions were a great help to Alwilda, our cook.

Rhod said...

Speaking of beatnik cafes, who here remembers The House of the Seven Sorrows in Tampa, way back in the 1960's?

Ah, so many beaded curtains and chianti-bottle candle holders in one place...and the finger-snap clapping for poetry-readings? Those were the days.

LL said...

Once the sharks got crabs, they vowed never to return to Antarctica. Sharks have a bad reputation, but they are good to their word. Lonely, eventually the crabs left forever as well and all moved to the Mexican/US border cities where they found many new habitats.

It's scientific - as soon as I shred my research notes and publish the paper. Then you will all be forced to BELIEVE me and give me money to aid the crabs to return to Antarctic waters. I call it CRAB and TRADE.

Rhod said...

LL told me he knows more about crabs than any other man on earth.
He's studied them with tweezers and magnifying glass.

LL said...

Rhod, you need to get up close and personal to understand the crab. The Tijuana crab is known as an even more ferocious fighter than the Alaskan King Crab. I personally think the Zamboanga (Philippines) crab is tougher still, but the science is still out on that one and the debate rages on.

I'm not the researcher - I only pass on the rumors.

SHELAILA said...

tengo una amiga q calienta las salchichas p¨sus hijos con su fuego kundalini.eso no es ecología?

Rhod said...

See? I told you LL was an expert.

Anonymous said...

Keep posting stuff like this i really like it