Spider crabs, Maja brachydactyla, represent an interesting example of a marine animal generating completely opposing opinions between two nearby regions in Europe.
In Spain, in Galicia particularly, spider crabs are a pricey delight for consumers and a tempting target of the region’s fishing industry. There, the crustacean is called “the King of seafood,” and consumers love its flavor and delicacy. Fishing for spider crab is so heavy that its population and its harvests have declined recently and prices have risen. During the most recent season, from November 2023 through February 2024, the volume of the spider crab harvest fell to two-thirds the level of the previous two years. Prices at dockside have risen in response: the region’s turnover from this resource, totalling nearly EUR 4.4 million in the 2023-2024 season, was 16% and 12%, respectively, over that of the previous two seasons and the dockside price was 27% and 33% higher in the same timeframe.
Compare that with northern France, particularly Normandy, where spider crabs also have a target: on their despised little heads. There, spider crabs are a big problem – a “plague” – becoming yet another invasive species that gobbles up the valuable English Channel lobster resource upon which many Norman fishermen depend. There is no significant market for spider crab in Normandy, certainly nothing compared to the demand for lobster locally and elsewhere in France.
The solution should be obvious to many people: catch the crabs in Normandy and sell them in Galicia. Or not even as far as Galicia – there is a limited demand for spider crabs in neighboring Brittany, where for unknown reasons consumers are fonder of this seafood than in Normandy. But while that demand is nearby Normandy, it is not enough to absorb the volume that must be extracted from the waters to save the lobster fishery.
Therefore, the Normandy fishing industry will have work harder – maybe with effective assistance from authorities — to catch and sell a crustacean that is hated to distant markets where it is loved.