Middelkerke does not want to immediately exterminate harmful marble lobster

The marble lobsters have been in the pond of the Normand Park for two years now, but they do not cause any nuisance at all. In the summer they are even an attraction. But the marble lobster is an exotic species that does not belong here and is harmful to biodiversity. Kevin Scheers (Institute for Nature and Forest Management): “Marble lobsters are omnivores, they really eat everything. They eat away all vegetation and also fish eggs, amphibian eggs, small fish and insect eggs. As a result, at the end of the day, only lobster is usually left. because all other animals and plants can disappear. The marble lobster can reproduce and multiply very quickly. In a few years you can go from one animal to several trillions, that can go very quickly.”

Serious food

And so the municipality has to exterminate the marble lobster. Alderman Henk Dierendonck: “Today we will not go into that because it entails serious costs and we do not have the men to do that. If necessary, we will do that. But the lobster is already living in the canals , is already as far as Sweden. I don’t know, if we empty the pond and remove the lobster here, how that will solve the European problem.”