Oil found in Gulf crabs raises new food chain fears

By Geoff Pender | Biloxi Sun Herald BILOXI, Miss. — University scientists have spotted the first indications oil is entering the Gulf seafood chain — in crab larvae — and one expert warns the effect on fisheries could last “years, probably not a matter of months” and affect many species. Scientists with the University of Southern Mississippi and Tulane University in New Orleans have found droplets of oil in the larvae of blue crabs and fiddler crabs sampled from Louisiana to Pensacola, Fla. The news comes as blobs of oil and tar continue to wash ashore in Mississippi in patches, with crews in chartreuse vests out cleaning beaches all along the coast on Thursday, and as state and federal fisheries from Louisiana to Florida are closed by the BP oil disaster. “I think we will see this enter the food chain in a lot of ways — for plankton feeders, like menhaden, they are going to just actively take it in,” said Harriet Perry, director of the Center for Fisheries Research and Development at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. “Fish are going to feed on (crab larvae). We have also just started seeing it on the fins of small, larval fish — their fins were encased in oil. That limits their mobility, so that makes them easy prey for other species. The oil’s going to get into the food chain in a lot of ways.” Perry said researchers have not yet linked the hydrocarbons found in the crab larvae to the BP disaster, but she has little doubt it’s the source. She said she has never seen such contamination in her 42 years of studying blue crab. Richard Gollott is Mississippi’s Department of Marine Resources commissioner for the commercial seafood industry and a seafood processing-plant owner from a family that’s been in the business for generations. He said closure of Gulf fisheries “appears to have been the right thing to do.” … Perry said the oil found in the crab larvae appears to be trapped between the hard outer shell and the inner skin. Perry said, “Shrimp, crab and oysters have a tough time with hydrocarbon metabolism.” She said fish that eat these smaller species can metabolize the oil, but their bodies also accumulate it with continued exposure and they can suffer reproductive problems “added to a long list of other problems.” … “I had a sort of breakdown last week,” Perry said. “I’ve driven down the same road on East Beach in Ocean Springs for 42 years. As I was going to work, I saw the shrimp fleet going out, all going to try to work on the oil, and I realized the utter futility of that, and I just lost it for a minute and had to gather myself. …

Oil found in Gulf crabs raises new food chain fears via Apocadocs