Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Crab catch­ers in Ma­yaro are call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to cre­ate guide­lines and reg­u­la­tions for mem­bers of the pub­lic who view crab-catch­ing as a hob­by rather than a liveli­hood.

Their call comes amid con­cerns for the species’ sur­vival, as non-pro­fes­sion­als of­ten catch crabs car­ry­ing eggs (berried crabs), which could af­fect fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

“If they con­tin­ue catch­ing the egg crab (egg-bear­ing shell­fish), it wouldn’t be able to be mul­ti­ply­ing as it is sup­posed to. Every year it go just be go­ing less­er and less­er, al­though they does mul­ti­ply very fast,” crab catch­er Kan­rick Kadoo said.

Kadoo, who has 25 years of ex­pe­ri­ence, said they nev­er catch berried crabs to sell and in­stead wait for them to re­lease their eggs be­fore set­ting their traps.

How­ev­er, he does not blame the pub­lic, who may vis­it the Ma­yaro, Mafek­ing, Stone­bright, or Guayagua­yare beach­es to catch crabs as a hob­by, some­times in­clud­ing preg­nant ones, as they sim­ply lack the nec­es­sary knowl­edge.

A group of crab catch­ers who spoke to Guardian Me­dia shared the same view. They said that in the com­ing years, it will be hard­er to cap­ture crabs.

“Most we can do is tell them about it, we cah re­al­ly stop them,” the crab catch­ers said.

The men, who did not re­veal their iden­ti­ties, ex­plained that males have an in­vert­ed U-shaped ab­domen, while fe­males have a broad­er, dome-shaped ab­domen. Some of the oth­er dif­fer­ences are claw size and colour.

A preg­nant crab can al­so be iden­ti­fied by the large, spongy mass of eggs she car­ries ex­ter­nal­ly be­neath her ab­domen.

It’s why Kadoo is call­ing for gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion to con­serve the crabs and al­so pro­tect their pro­fes­sion.

“It might be some­thing that will help us, the crab catch­ers, too… Nor­mal­ly, when the egg crab runs, it does not have on­ly egg crab alone. Then it does have the nor­mal male crab, like what we do be catch­ing, but some peo­ple doh know, which is the dif­fer­ence. It have plen­ty of peo­ple does do it for fun like a sport,” he ex­plained.

They use traps to cap­ture their crabs.

In re­sponse, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ma­yaro and Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Nicholas Mor­ris, said that in keep­ing with the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to pro­tect and en­hance lo­cal en­tre­pre­neur­ship, he will work with and con­sult Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Ravi Rati­ram to sched­ule a key dis­cus­sion aimed at safe­guard­ing the in­ter­ests of these im­por­tant mem­bers of his con­stituen­cy.

The MP not­ed that crab catch­ers are val­ued mem­bers of the Ma­yaro com­mu­ni­ty and make up a sig­nif­i­cant part of the lo­cal econ­o­my, as well as con­tribut­ing to the area’s tourism ini­tia­tives. He added that he was aware some have raised con­cerns, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the high num­ber of vis­i­tors catch­ing crabs for recre­ation and leisure.

Guardian Me­dia sent mes­sages and tried call­ing Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry, Sad­dam Ho­sein, about the crab catch­ers’ con­cerns, but nei­ther min­is­ter re­spond­ed or an­swered yes­ter­day.