“He is aggressive, he is fast, he is an animal of unacceptable intelligence. We fight this blue crab, but he is stronger than us because there are so many of them,” said Marco Giudici, who has been fishing in the Orbetello lagoon for more than 40 years. He even has a battle scar: On one thumb he has the marks of a crab that almost broke his nail with a claw.
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This reminded me of another story of invasive creatures I learned about on a cruise to the Caribbean - can’t remember what island we were on that day (the ship sailed overnight and stopped each day at about 10 of them). Our tour took us through a rainforest and the guide said that the island used to be over run by snakes, but when Britain colonized it they brought mongoose from India to eradicate the snakes. And now, the mongoose have little to eat so they go after their chickens and now people eat mongoose…I dunno.
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There’s a website dedicated to this idea:
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This is a story from the Virgin Islands. However the mongooses were brought to control rats not snakes. I don’t know of anyone eating mongooses though. They eat a lot of the lizards. Your story is a reason I don’t like cruises. This is Tuesday so this island must be…?
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It was our first and last cruise. We were on a relatively small ship with Viking. It was a beautiful vessel but since we sailed overnight we never got to enjoy being on the water and all of the ports were so industrial - nothing within walking range from the ship so we had to take bus tours every day. We only paid for 2 extracurricular excursions. For the most part, we learned a whole lot of history and saw a lot of abject poverty circled by obscene wealth - private islands, yachts and residences owned by billionaires. I got bored on the ship. This was January 2020 and we were damned lucky to get back home at the start of Covid.
The most remarkable story we heard was about monkeys we saw on one of the islands - they were everywhere. Don’t remember which island. Our guide told us that whatever European or British explorer laid claim to the place and began colonizing and bringing slaves to work for them they also brought monkeys because the flora was unfamiliar to them and they didn’t know what was edible. They would feed native plants to the monkeys and if the monkeys survived they figured it was safe to eat. Eventually they stopped tending to the monkeys and let them run in the wild. Apparently it’s the only island that has them.
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Anyone have any decent recipes for Asian beetles, or jumping worms?
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I know there are monkeys on St Kitts & Nevis. There are former sugar plantations on both. Brimstone Hill fortress is one impressive place. Not sure how accurate the story you were told is though.
Cruise ship docks are usually in places no one would want to go.
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It was an unusual trip for us. We had never done that, or spent that much money doing it and would not do it again. My husband’s work took him to Europe for many years and we lived there for awhile - we gravitate back to travel there, renting apartments for a few weeks somewhere and immersing ourselves. I had no expectations going into the cruise except I knew it was adult only and no casinos or playground stuff. All I can say is we learned a whole lot of history we weren’t taught in school. How much of it was accurate I don’t really know - the guides were locals and very geared up about presenting their culture to us.
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Omg, an invasion of blue crabs and forcing us (or me) all to eat them to save the ecosystem would be like a foodie dream for me…
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Can confirm! Green vervets.
There’s also a book called “Eating Aliens”. The author, an avid hunter, decided to travel around the USA and hunt and eat invasive species, like Scorpion Fish, snakeheads, Asian carp, iguanas, and so forth. It wasn’t great literature, but I enjoyed reading the book and seeing the possibilities of reducing or eliminating harmful animals that shouldn’t be here.
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Snakeheads are so delicious. You seem them very rarely on menus in the mid Atlantic but almost impossible to buy them. I used to have an acquaintance who fished for them in the Chesapeake Bay.
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They may need a new name before they show up on lots of restaurants, just sayin’. Like Longfish or something more creative
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Exactly what I thought when I read that. I would love to help them save the planet over there and devour as many as I could for the greater good.
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I see snakeheads as the redfish of the future. Blackened fish turned redfish into a star over night. The Atchafalaya basin was full of redfish. Now, folks have snapped most of them up. Now, another food source has moved in. Eat up. I’m anxious to try snakehead, but still don’t want them trolling my fishing spots.
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That’s where my mom’s family is from! Don’t recall seeing them in Nevis, but we saw a lot of goats!
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Oh, I have pictures. Behind my friend’s parents’ house (next to Golden Rock Plantation), the monkeys would congregate in the trees every evening around 5:30. So we would mix up a batch of vodka and Ting and stroll back there for “monkey hour.” You could wave to them and they’d wave back!
Plenty of goats, too. And donkeys. And sheep.
Just like nobody ordered Patagonian toothfish until it was rechristened Chilean seabass!
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Skewer, toast until crispy and dip in your favorite dipping sauce. Works with crickets.
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