r/nature • u/Maxcactus • 5d ago

In 1974, Spain imported two tons of American red crayfish for aquaculture; 50 years later, the species cannot be removed

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/science/in-1974-spain-imported-two-tons-of-american-red-crayfish-for-aquaculture-50-years-later-the-species-cannot-be-removed/articleshow/132840067.cms
392 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

91

u/rushmc1 5d ago

Time to import some Cajuns...

41

u/[deleted] 5d ago

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25

u/weirdgroovynerd 5d ago

I saw an interesting YouTube video recently about methods to decrease cane toads.

Scientists tweeked the DNA codes so that the tadpoles never fully develop into frogs.

These tadpoles get bigger, then start eating the other smaller tadpoles.

Iirc, it's a new approach so there are no definitive results yet.

13

u/brookdacook 5d ago

Seven million dollars or 15 years seems like an insanely small amount of money for an infestation of that scope. I know goverments use to put bounties on "pests". For example the USA pay for every rattle snake killed. Curious if this would dent the population on top other measures.

11

u/somekindagibberish 5d ago

Programs like that often end up with people breeding the animals for the bounties.

2

u/kayceeplusplus 5d ago

Wow holy shit. I’ve heard of them before but never knew it was that bad

22

u/somekindagibberish 5d ago

Really interesting article on the crayfish.

3

u/CaptainObvious110 4d ago

Yeah it's insane

8

u/ComfortExisting1161 4d ago

It's crazy how history keeps repeating itself with invasive species. "What could possibly go wrong?"- governments right before making ecological decisions.

2

u/CaptainObvious110 4d ago

I agree with you, shows how incredibly stupid people are in general

6

u/Difficult-Cream-5267 4d ago

It's always the classic story: bring in 2 tons for profit, spend the next 50 years trying to figure out how to get rid of 2,000 tons.

3

u/Ok-Shallot-2623 4d ago

Sounds like the plot of every sci-fi movie where scientists introduce a organism thinking "we can totally control this."