Look at what the cargo ship dragged in

[n2doc]

Look at what the cargo ship dragged in
With invasive aquatic species costing billions yearly, lawmakers seek to stop their spread by clamping down on the discharge of ballast water from cargo ships.

By Moises Velasquez-Manoff | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

In June, a Chesapeake Bay crabber made an unusual - and possibly ominous - catch. John Delp hauled up a trap holding a crab with what appeared to be fur on its pincers.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) caught wind of Mr. Delp's find and, after an examination, concluded it was a Chinese mitten crab, an exotic species native to East Asia and well established in San Francisco Bay, but never before seen on the East Coast. Immediately, the DNR issued an alert. One male crab wasn't proof of a breeding population, but it was cause for vigilance.


In August a second animal, caught years earlier and preserved in a waterman's freezer, came to light. Exactly how two Chinese mitten crabs - both male and both a continent away from the nearest known population - found their way to Chesapeake Bay is a mystery, but scientists suspect an old villain: ballast water. Before setting sail, cargo ships take in vast amounts of water for stabilization, and then discharge the water at their destination. Only nominally filtered on uptake, this water, known as ballast, inevitably contains a host of organisms, ranging from algae to the larvae of various mollusk species to (at least in one case) an entire school of fish.

"Considering that there are over 30,000 ships at sea this morning," writes James Carlton, director of the Williams College-Mystic Seaport Maritime Studies Program, in an e-mail, "the total number of organisms and species in this global 'bioflow' on the morning your readers read your piece could be staggering - billions of individuals, and thousands of species."

Indeed, scientists have long considered ballast water the primary way invasive aquatic organisms are introduced. From the zebra mussel's arrival in the Great Lakes, to an American jellyfish severely disrupting Black Sea fisheries, the potential costs of accidental introduction of a species to new homes can be tremendous. Aquatic invasives cost the US $9 billion yearly, according to estimates by David Pimentel, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Zebra and quagga mussels (a cousin to the zebra) alone cost the $1 billion annually.

more:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1018/p14s01-sten.html

[applegrove]

1. Bet you there is lots of animals from China being dropped off. And no

rides home on cargo ships either.

[Phrogman]

4. Actually China is getting all the American ballast water

ships backload with Chinese sweatshop junk after they pump it out.

[applegrove]

5. You are correct. I spoke too soon. Still - must be lots on animals

in containers. They are all outside -seaside in China for a bit before they get loaded.

[acmejack]

2. Fabulous.

The crabs didn't need any additional help. When I went to Baltimore in 90 and heard the price of a Bushel of Crabs I thought it wa a joke. I hadn't been to the Bay area since 1984. The price was five times what it was!

[ellenfl]

3. godzilla! (i know, that's japan)

it will be interesting to see how our world will be affected. globalization.

ellen fl