It is a similar situation in British waters along the east and south coasts of the UK, where fishermen’s catches are down by 40 per cent.
Paul McBride, of Big Vern’s in St Ouen’s Bay, said he had been forced to increase the cost of a crab sandwich by £1 as he was having to pay more to ensure a steady supply.
Reports in the national media attribute the shortage of brown crabs – or chancres, as they are known in Jersey and the other Channel Islands – to sub-zero temperatures that wreaked havoc on the British Isles from late February to early March.
But a local fisheries expert said the shortages were due to a general decline in the species that was first noticed six years ago. And it is also hitting crab stocks along the English Channel and in nearby French waters.
‘There has been a shortage of brown crab for about three years,’ a spokesman for Jersey’s Marine Resources section said.
‘The decline started in 2012 but levels really started dropping in 2014. According to the States fishery figures, roughly 500 tons were landed in 2012 and last year that had fallen to about 300 tons.
‘They are having the same problems in Normandy, Brittany and the south-west of England. We do not believe that disease is the cause of decline as there are no signs of that across all the fisheries.’
They have also ruled out overfishing as numbers are falling across all sizes of crabs and not just those that can be legally landed.
Marine Resources officers have been at sea this week to monitor local brown crab numbers following talks with colleagues from French and UK sea fisheries that began last year to discover the causes of the species decline.
Fortunately, Islanders tend to prefer spider crabs when it comes to a seafood feast at home and, like lobsters, they are in plentiful supply. However, that is not likely to meet the demand from restaurants and beach cafés. They traditionally prefer chancres as they are are less labour intensive to process, which also keeps the price down.
