Concern about falling brown crab numbers in the Channel Islands due to warmer waters and overfishing
ITV Channel reporter Matthew Leach looks at the brown crab's decline in the Channel Islands
A Guernsey fisherman has expressed his concern over the decline in brown crabs in Channel Island waters.
The decrease has been attributed to warmer sea temperatures, scallop fishing, dredging and a rise in some octopus species.
Clive Brown, who has been crabbing in Guernsey since he was a teenager, tells ITV News: "This has come on quite quickly, this lack of crab.
"Obviously we've had our lobster season this year, not spectacular but ok. We've had our crab season during the winter, again not spectacular but ok, and we go into our summer crab fishery and it's just died."
Clive says "almost industrial-level" scallop fishing is having a "detrimental effect" on the number of brown crabs in Guernsey waters.
Shellfish traders in the island are now finding it increasingly difficult to meet the demand for brown crab but say there is no shortage of other fish and crustaceans they can sell.
Jason Hamon, a local fishmonger, explains: "There are plenty of lobsters around so we've resorted to picked lobsters rather than selling picked crab.
"There are always plenty of other fish to sell, even the octopus which seems to be getting the blame for taking all the crabs."
In 2021, a team from Jersey Marine Resources started a tagging survey to try and identify why the brown crab population was declining across the Channel Islands.
Marine ecologist Dr Samantha Blampied says many of the crabs have headed west into deeper waters and the drop in numbers is not necessarily an immediate cause for concern.
She adds: "Probably there will become a point where the population will be at a critical threshold for where they can continue to reproduce but I think it'll be a long time before we get to zero crabs."
Samantha explains that while around 500 tonnes of brown crab were caught in 2012, less than 100 tonnes have been reeled in per year more recently.
There have been efforts to protect marine species like the brown crab from overfishing in the Channel Islands, including Jersey's Marine Spatial Plan, although global environmental factors such as rising sea temperatures mean it may be unlikely that numbers will return to previous levels.
Brown crabs prefer to like cooler waters and rarely live in seas reaching 20°C or hotter.
Temperatures have regularly hit 18-19°C in the Channel Islands this summer, meaning an increasing number of brown crabs are leaving the waters, potentially for good.
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