“Do You Know Crab?” Italy Turns Invasive Blue Crabs Into an Export Business

Italy’s blue crab nuisance is turning into a source of income. Fishermen in the Po Delta once received government support to catch the invasive species and burn every one of them. Now they are selling the crabs overseas.

The Polesine fishermen’s cooperative in northeastern Italy expects to generate 20 million euros in revenue this year, with most of that income coming from blue crab sales. It has sold all the blue crabs caught this year, eliminating the need to burn them.

Native to the Atlantic coast of North America, blue crabs are believed to have entered the Adriatic Sea through ships’ ballast water at least as early as the 1940s. Their numbers surged from 2023. Warmer water and drought lowered the Po River’s level, allowing saltwater to move farther into inland waterways and creating conditions that appear to favor breeding.

The crabs have caused heavy damage to local fisheries by tearing through nets and consuming shellfish indiscriminately. The fishermen’s new strategy does not remove the ecological problem, but it gives them a way to turn a species once treated as a scourge into a product for foreign markets.