Our fragile ecosystem has suffered yet another devastating blow. Billions of Arctic crustaceans have lost habitat and life to human activity.
A press release from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced that this year’s Bering Sea snow crab season had been cancelled. While the shutdown season will devastate the fishery, immediate action is needed to prevent more crabs from being left.
Research in the Bering Sea shows that snow crab populations in Alaska have been declining in recent years. According to the New York Times, “We lost about 90 percent of these animals between 2018 and 2021,” said Miranda Westphal, a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
The main reason for the mass mortality of crabs is habitat loss. As an arctic species, crabs need cold water to survive. As the ocean warms, crabs are forced to squeeze into the few remaining cold spots.
Habitat loss is the leading cause of mass crab mortality. An arctic species, crabs, need cold water to survive. As the sea warms, crabs are forced to swarm the remaining cold spots.
A small part of the former empire was crammed with so many animals that disease and competition for food killed billions of people. Such rapid changes in water temperature do not occur naturally. Like many other species whose populations are declining, climate change is to blame.
The rapid decline in snow crab numbers should serve as a wake-up call that our society is doing irreparable damage to the planet on which we depend. But these environmental hazards have become so commonplace that most people are unaware of them. It will be too late when everyone starts taking climate change seriously.
Source: northernstar.info
