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| Chongming hairy crabs on the way |
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By: Shanghai Daily
Apr 26,2008 |
Shanghai Ocean University, formerly Shanghai Fisheries University, is to set up hairy crab raising centers in suburban Chongming County in a bid to increase supplies.
Chongming is a traditional area for crab breeding, but most of the young crabs will be transported to freshwater areas elsewhere to develop into edible adult ones.
Yangcheng Lake, a freshwater lake in neighboring Jiangsu Province, is well known across the country for hairy crabs.
Thousands of tons of Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs go on sale at home and aboard each year.
However, the region was ordered to cut its crab-raising area from the 5,400 hectares to 2,144 hectares this year, due to an outbreak of blue algae on Taihu Lake, according to Yang Weilong, head of the Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab Association.
Feeding the crabs and other water creatures was considered one of the reasons for an increase of nutrients in the water, a major cause for algae overgrowth, university officials said.
"After the output decline of Yangcheng Lake crabs, here comes the opportunity for Chongming crabs," said Pan Yingjie, the university president.
As part of Chongming County's ecological island building program, the breeding centers will focus on not only young crab breeding but also new crab-raising technologies.
University scientists will try to work out new technologies to make Chongming crabs, which are small, reach a weight of 700 gram to 800 grams, like Yangcheng Lake crabs.
Meanwhile, researchers will also try to develop processed crab food made of smaller Chongming crabs to promote the "Chongming Crab" brand.
In August, the university will hold its second hairy crab king competition.
Some 100 locals can sign up via the Internet to judge the competition, university officials said.
Last year, a male crab weighing 524.8 grams won first prize. | |
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