Spider crabs warm to life in UK waters

Millions of Mediterranean spider crabs are finding their way into UK waters, prompting fears among fishermen who sell native brown crabs that their catches will be reduced as competition for food increases.

In recent years, the invaders have turned up on the coasts of Devon and Cornwall but this summer they are being caught further afield, including in Norfolk, which faces the North Sea and is famous for its brown crabs.

Fishermen such as John Davies, 57, from Norfolk, who has been catching crabs for 40 years, fears our waters are warming, because they would once have been too cold for the non-native species. He said this year he had “caught numbers in the mid-teens, where before you never saw one at all”.

But he, at least, is optimistic Britain’s crab industry will survive.

“They’re not as strong as our crabs. I’d imagine our … crabs will deal with them quite easily,” he added.