In spring 2021, the waters around Qingdao City in Shandong suddenly flooded with starfish. (Screenshot from Weibo)
The sea around Qingdao City in Shandong Province is flooded with starfish, like locusts in a crop field, directly causing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to nearby clam farmers. The fishermen are now caught in the dilemma of no harvest and high cost of fishing for starfish, and the officials have no substantial compensation plan yet, except for letting the fishermen catch them.
Comprehensive mainland media reports, fishermen called the starfish “submarine locusts”, March is the season of clam breeding harvest and seedlings, but the sea around Qingdao, Shandong Province starfish flooded the disaster, the sea floor clams were almost eaten up.
According to incomplete statistics, in the sea area of Jiaozhou Bay where the starfish outbreak occurred, the density of starfish is about 50 per square meter on average, and the affected area is about 100,000 mu, which is expected to cause economic losses of hundreds of millions of RMB.
No official solution to the sudden starfish flooding this year
Local fishermen said the starfish flooding started around Chinese New Year this year, when fishermen found a large number of starfish in the offshore waters, and the clams had been eaten down to their shells, just like a crop encountering locusts.
The mainland media quoted experts as explaining that it might be because “starfish have the ability to move and may gather in some breeding areas where Food is more abundant” or because “the survival rate of the larvae has increased”.
But fishermen said that this year, the starfish flooding degree is particularly serious, in previous years, the sea near Jiaozhou Bay also found starfish, but the number is relatively small; previously in 2007, there was a starfish flooding situation.
A fisherman said that the sea floor starfish dense, farmers dare not put clam seedlings, but do not put seedlings means that the next year is “no harvest”, and therefore caught in a dilemma.
Another farmer said he raised more than 260 acres of clams, the cost of seedlings last year about more than 1 million yuan, and now basically lost all the money; aquaculture industry in recent years is not good, and because of the high risk, the insurance industry “away”, this year, coupled with the infestation of starfish, all the losses can only be borne by themselves.
The local official fisheries department said on March 12, three days to introduce governance measures; but three days later the official only said, “the most direct and effective way is to catch (starfish)”, but the official “sent experts to guide local fishermen fishing”, did not explain how fishermen’s losses The solution.
At present, fishermen can only catch starfish by themselves, but due to the large number, they need to use fishing boats and hire divers to catch them one by one, which is extremely costly and inefficient. A fishing boat equipped with three divers to salvage four or five thousand pounds of starfish per day, far from enough.
In addition, the price of clams is several times higher than that of starfish, so even if fishermen sell starfish, they cannot make up for the loss, and the number of starfish is too large. In addition, local fishermen also warned the public that starfish are high in cholesterol and should not be consumed in excess; some nutritionists warned that starfish themselves contain toxins and need to be consumed with care.
In the spring of 2021, the waters around Qingdao City in Shandong suddenly became flooded with starfish.
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