Tuesday 06 November 2007
BBC LANDWARD FINDS OUT MORE ABOUT SHETLAND VELVET CRABS
BBC Landward was in Shetland last month to find out more about Shetland velvet crabs and the Velvet Crab Survey currently being undertaken by the NAFC Marine Centre.
The velvet crab fishery is a very important one for Shetland’s inshore fleet, with the whole catch transported live to Spain. During the summer months velvet crabs shed their hard shells in order to grow and following this it takes about 20 days for the new shell to harden. The soft crabs have a poor meat quality and may not survive being transported to market so they are discarded by the fishermen.
The Shetland Shellfish Management Organisation (SSMO) and NAFC have been awarded funding from the DEFRA Fisheries Challenge Fund to look at where and when the crabs are moulting and to use this information to implement real time closures when the crabs are soft. This would mean that the fishermen can report soft crabs and the areas can be closed to suit, as opposed to the current closures which do not always match the times when the crabs are soft.
The Landward team went out to the east side of Shetland on board Atlantia II with staff members from the Centre to film crabs being caught and measured. Shellfish technician Dr Richard Shelmerdine was interviewed for the programme. He said: “We took them out to film the crabs being caught and sorted, first hand. Over a period of time we have been monitoring soft crabs in specific areas, how many there are, as well as weighing and measuring them. We hope this information will help to inform the real time closures.
The Landward team were also interested to find out more about velvet crabs in Shetland and why they are exported rather than eaten in the islands.
They also met with fisherman Billy Hughes who provided a selection of velvet crabs which were later cooked in Da Haaf restaurant for the group to taste.
The programme will be aired on 9 November on BBC 2 Scotland at 7pm.
Further information from:
Richard Shelmerdine, NAFC Marine Centre, tel 01595 772303, email
Or Louise Rosie, Shaw Marketing and Design Ltd, tel 01595 692465 or email