Eat octopus to save the British crab, say fishermen

Five years ago, Mr Steer had never caught an octopus and would pull in up to half a ton of crab a day. But octopus numbers have “exploded” over the past two years.

When The Telegraph stepped aboard on Thursday, Mr Steer, his son Alfie Steer, 20, and Sebastian ‘Bassie’ Williams, 39, lifted out individual pots containing as many as 13, which are nearly all sold to France and Spain. But there were no crabs to be seen.

However, Mr Steer, the vice-chairman of the South Devon and Channel Shell-fishermen association, is keen to stress that he is one of the lucky ones.

“Everyone thinks you get this bonanza of octopus but it’s really isolated, so most boats get hardly anything,” he said, pointing to a fellow third-generation fisherman who had recently sold up.

“It’s make or break this year because people’s livelihoods are on the line,” he added. “This season will be the deciding factor whether they carry on.”

In response, fishermen and chefs are demanding action from the Government, and calling on UK consumers to embrace eating octopus to save this vital British industry.

Jack Stein, chef-director of the Rick Stein restaurant group, said: “As Dad’s been saying for 50 years, it would be so good if we could support our fishermen by eating what they’re catching.”

“It’s a really important new source of income for the fishermen,” he added. “It’s great seafood, it’s a new market, and we should be supporting it.”

Common octopuses are thought to have lived in UK waters in small numbers for thousands of years, but scientists believe a change in the currents, and the effects of climate change, have caused sea temperatures to rise, triggering the largest octopus bloom in decades.

So far this year, octopus landings in UK waters have more than doubled in weight to around 1,300 tons, according to the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), while crab catches have plummeted dramatically.

Octopus blooms occur a handful of times every hundred years, with the last major ones taking place in the late 1940s, the early 1930s and at the turn of the 20th century.

“There’s a lot we still don’t understand about them”, said Bryce Stewart, a marine ecologist at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, warning that this may be the most devastating bloom yet.

Finding ways to prevent octopuses from killing crabs is like trying to “stop the Einstein of apex predators”, he said.

First, they crawl into crab pots and wait for their unsuspecting prey to arrive. Then, they use their beak to drill a hole in the crab’s shell and stun it with venom before ripping it apart with their powerful tentacles.

Growing up to 4ft 4in in length and weighing up to 22lb, they can eat around a third of their body weight a day, equivalent to up to five large brown crabs.

As crabs take four to five years to grow to full size, Mr Stewart said, it was likely to take years for their numbers to recover.

The species in question, the European or Mediterranean octopus (Octopus vulgaris), is typically associated with warmer waters.

However, an unusually warm set of winters have seen water temperatures rise to 4C above average for the past couple of years.

As octopuses breeds in spring and summer, the warmer temperatures have enabled their eggs to survive in unprecedented numbers.

Worryingly for UK fishing communities, the octopuses appear to be spreading out and moving northwards, with sightings reported off the coast of Pembrokeshire, East Sussex and North Cornwall this year for the first time.

Mr Steer said there had been “a lot of interest” from the MMO and Defra in supporting struggling fishermen, including diversification of fishing licences and the decommissioning of boats, but nothing had materialised yet.

“It’s all very well talking about it, we need to see some action,” he said.

Defra and the MMO were approached for comment.

At The Cricket Inn in Beesands, Devon, a seafront pub whose walls are lined with old photographs of fishermen, the Japanese-inspired barbecued octopus is a bestseller.

Scott Heath, 38, the pub’s owner and chef, said punters “are scared of eating octopus because of how they look and smell... but they are so delicious.”

He added: “It’s sustainable, easy to cook when you know how, you can do it at home and in restaurants – people should eat more octopus.”

Standing at the helm of his boat towards the end of a day’s work, Mr Steer worries the trade that has sustained his family for generations may be in its dying days.

“We’ve spent generations looking after this ground. My grandfather used to come out here with compasses to work these sand banks,” he said.

“All of a sudden, you get a climate shift, and no one really knows what’s happening day to day…that frightens me.”

“For my son, I really hope it’s there for him, but I don’t know what the future will bring.”

[Source: Daily Telegraph]