Italy Deploys Octopus Army Against Invasive Blue Crabs

Italy is sending in eight-armed reinforcements against a crab that won't quit. In the Adriatic, scientists have released about 130,000 lab-bred baby octopuses in a bid to curb exploding numbers of Atlantic blue crabs that are wrecking fishing gear and wiping out lucrative clam and mussel beds—damage that farm group Coldiretti pegs at more than $230 million so far, the Telegraph reports. The "Octo-Blu" project, led by Bologna University and the Emilia-Romagna regional government, is banking on a simple food-chain fix: once grown, each octopus could devour up to four crabs a day.

The plan is far from a sure thing. The tiny "paralarvae" face a mortality rate of more than 99%, though researchers have sunk artificial dens to boost their odds. Still, even a single crab eaten can matter, notes project scientist Oliviero Mordenti, who points out that one female crab can produce up to 2 million eggs. Blue crabs have already forced some aquaculture businesses to shut and have been found 100 miles up the Po River, suggesting they're spreading to avoid overcrowding, which leads to cannibalism.

"We chose the octopus because, in the wild, it is a formidable predator of crustaceans," says Antonio Casalini, a University of Bologna aquaculture expert. "We are not introducing a new species but working on strengthening the population of a native species already naturally present in the Adriatic," Casalini says, per Scientific American. Italy is also pushing a culinary counterattack, stocking blue crab in shops and on menus, but diners so far haven't been able to eat their way out of the problem.