The Chinese Mitten Crab

What is the Mitten Crab?

The Chinese mitten crab is found in lakes in Korea or China where they can live as long as five years, and are about the size of your palm with unusually furry claws and they consume a wide variety of plants and animals, including algae, invertebrates and will scavenge fish carcasses (also steal a wide range of bait).

How They Got Here

The mitten crab arrived in Canada because years ago shipping boats would travel from china to the western world and the crabs would hitch a ride on them and since they had no natural predators they adapted fast and then they began to migrate north and spread out everywhere and people have also tried to introduce them to North

America.

The Effect On The Ecosystem

To hide from predators they bury themselves underneath the sand and this speeds up erosion and insatiability on levees and riverbanks. They increase predation and competition because they eat a lot of the major food groups on the food web. They also inhabit areas with high levels of bioaccumulation and transfer large amounts to predators and humans. Lastly their a host for lung fluke witch are easily transferred from one host to the next.

The Solution

In China these crabs are considered a delicacy to eat, and with all of Chinese people immigrating here there is going to be a high demand on them so it looks like we’ll have to eat ourselves out!

The EndBy: Ashley Rogers

Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mitten_crabhttp://wsg.washington.edu/mas/ecohealth/invasive_crabs/mitten_crab.htmlhttp://www.anstaskforce.gov/spoc/mitten_crab.phphttp://www.projectufo.ca/drupal/Chinese_Mitten_Crabhttp://www.invasivespecies.net/database/species/ecology.asp?fr=1&si=38&sts