# Why not breed crabs and lobsters? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 9, 2007, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-breed-crabs-and-lobsters/407408 "2007-06-09T22:12:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-breed-crabs-and-lobsters/407408/1 "2007-06-09T22:12:15Z")
I’m watching one of those Discovery shows right now about guys catching lobsters in the North Atlantic and my girlfriend turned to me and asked me why they just can’t farm them instead of risking so much to go and catch them. I honestly don’t even have an educated guess on this kind of thing. It doesn’t seem to be a space issue, since lots of them seem to be able to be caught in a single trap, and it doesn’t seem to be a “can’t breed in captivity” thing since they’re really just giant bugs anyway, so why don’t we have giant crab and lobster farms somewhere? ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-breed-crabs-and-lobsters/407408/2 "2007-06-09T22:51:26Z")
I don’t know about the crabs, but lobsters take a decade or so to reach market size. That tends to make them not worth breeding - it takes too long to make a return on your investment. Also unless I’m mistakes both crabs and lobsters have a juvenile stage in which they are essentially plankton, which makes them hard to raise in captivity. And lobsters are territorial and need sizeable amounts of space if you don’t want them to eat each other. Those rubberbands on the claws of supermarket lobsters aren’t just to protect the hands of the merchant - they also keep down the rate of cannibalism. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-breed-crabs-and-lobsters/407408/3 "2007-06-09T22:55:35Z")
Norway is [trying](http://articles.uwphoto.no/articles_folder/lobster_farming_in_Norway.htm) it. > [@](#): > > Introduction > Due to a high market demand, low wild catches and a continuing increase in prices, the European lobster has become a promising candidate for closed-cycle and controlled aquaculture. In 2000, the company Norwegian Lobster Farm AS initiated an extensive R&D project on the European lobster, in cooperation with the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen and Stavanger University College. The research facilities are located on Kvitsøy, an island on the south-western coast of Norway. The project includes R&D work on biology, technology, feed, market, monitoring of water quality, health management and comparative studies on single cages vs. communal rearing systems. The aims of the project are to explore the possibilities and potentials of producing the European lobster in land-based facilities using re-circulation of seawater. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-breed-crabs-and-lobsters/407408/4 "2007-06-09T23:02:31Z")
[QUOTE=Khadaji] Norway is [trying](http://articles.uwphoto.no/articles_folder/lobster_farming_in_Norway.htm) it. [/QUOTE] I know that UC Davis’ Bodega Bay Marine Laboratory was also working on lobster culture back in…1990?..when I visited while taking ichthyology. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-not-breed-crabs-and-lobsters/407408/5 "2007-06-09T23:44:36Z")
In the Chesapeake area they are [investigating](http://www.umbi.umd.edu/nande/news/dnr.pdf) whether it may be feasible to hatch crabs in Nurseries and release the juveniles into the wild like they do with species of game fish now. Which in turn leads me to believe that there are no crab farms there - I imagine that the scale – compared to the wild crab harvest would make such a thing difficult