Speaking of Denmark, what was your first reaction, Andersen's hometown fairytale kingdom? Descendants of Vikings?
A few years ago, an official Microblog at the Danish Embassy went viral, with the theme that Denmark had been invaded by oysters and that the Danes could not solve and sought outside help. Unexpectedly, as soon as it was released, it exploded on the Internet and dominated various news headlines. Since then, oysters have become a new label in Denmark.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Pacific oysters occupy the Danish coastline</h1>
The cause of the matter is this, the personnel of the Danish Embassy in China, seeing the Danish media "Politica Newspaper", the Second Television Station and other media have reported the news of a large number of oysters in danish waters, feel that this topic is good, biological invasion is indeed a major event, and they posted the relevant situation on Weibo for help. The oyster that invaded the Danish coastline is a common oyster species that has invaded many countries around the world, called the Pacific oyster.
Pacific oysters, known as Pacific oysters, are a larger type of shellfish, commonly known as true oysters. Native to Japan, the oyster was introduced to China in the 1980s from Japan, Australia and Taiwan. Due to its tender flesh, rich in nutrients, and extremely high aquaculture production, it soon became one of the main species of cultivated oysters in China.
Why is there a large-scale invasion? At the end of the day, it's because this oyster is too "oyster" to put! Adult oyster mothers with a height of 8–15 cm can lay 50 million to 200 million eggs at a time, and the Pacific oysters are also "hermaphrodites" and can switch genders at will, which makes their invasion a matter of course.
In 1966, French fishermen introduced it to Europe for extensive farming. Today, the most common concave-shell oyster on the market in France is the Pacific oyster, which was introduced to France in the 1970s and has so far produced about 90% of the total number of oysters in France. During the same period, in the 1960s, Dutch fishermen brought Pacific oysters into the Wadden Sea for artificial farming.
The Wadden Sea is bordered by the Netherlands to the south and Denmark to the east. This is how Pacific oysters have spread, and it is reported that in 1996, Pacific oysters invaded the wadden Sea on the Danish side. Just a few years later, the oysters spread across Denmark's coastline.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right> delicious oysters have become a thorny problem for the Danes</h1>
The meat of oysters is tender, delicious, rich in nutrients, containing 45% to 57% protein, 7% to 11% fat, 19% to 38% liver sugar, the content of iodine is higher than milk and eggs, in addition, it also contains a variety of vitamins and trace elements, known as marine milk.
Why don't danes eat such a good thing?
Once viking was rampant, the golden age of Vikings began in 796, and in the nearly three hundred years from 796 to 1066, they set off from Norway and plundered along the coastline of Europe, and even Britain and the Black Sea region could not escape the clutches of these pirates. During this period, pirates used oysters as a delicacy, and to this day in Denmark you can still see pirate ruins, and even oyster shells dropped by pirates. So the whole of Europe, including Denmark, has also had a tradition of eating oysters since ancient times. The Pacific oyster was introduced to Europe to eat it.
There are two reasons for the infestation of Oysters in the Pacific, one is that the population of Denmark is too small. According to the data, as of December 31, 2019, the total population of Denmark was 5.82 million. This figure is equivalent to the population of a city in a province with a large population like Anhui in China. For example, the permanent population of Fuyang City in 2019 was 8.25 million. So the small population has become the main cause of oyster flooding, because the strong reproductive ability of the Pacific oysters makes this small country with a population of just over five million people really unable to eat.
Another reason is that The Danes prefer to eat limfjord oysters of local origin. This oyster, native to the Lim waterway in northern Denmark, is a favorite of native Denmark, and in some restaurants, Limfjord oysters can sell for $8.85 a piece.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the chinese foodie army attacked Denmark</h1>
China has an equally long history of eating oysters. The Chinese Northern Song Dynasty poet Su Shi was a very food-loving person, even if he was relegated to Danzhou, he also wrote to his son excitedly: "Dongpo is in Hainan, eating oysters and beauty."
Hearing the news of the spread of Oysters in Denmark, Chinese netizens have responded, saying that they will eat them all. The Danish Embassy also saw the opportunity to immediately open a new visa application center, increased the processing of visas, planned the oyster tourism route, and invited Chinese Internet celebrities and celebrities to go to Denmark to live-stream oyster eating, with remarkable results.
Some domestic e-commerce platforms also responded quickly, contacting the Danish Embassy about oyster imports. The ability of Chinese foodies has been fully exerted at this time, after all, in China, oysters are not cheap, although the barbecue food stalls in the mainland are sold, but the price is generally 10-12 yuan per piece, which is enough to buy two large chicken legs. The ability of Chinese foodies surprised the Danish Embassy, a Sichuan beauty with her family and friends to go to Denmark to dig oysters, busy work, actually dug three hundred pounds, this person can eat dozens of pounds of food, smoothly help Denmark to break the siege, but also set off a wave of Danish tourism, driving the local economy. This successful case of solving invasive species should have been used as a typical example for Australia, and the province is still worried about too many rabbits to eat.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > what is the harm of oyster invasion</h1>
Oysters are mild mollusks that have no special actions in their lifetime except for growth and reproduction. Compared with other invasive species that burrow and prey on other small local animals, the Pacific oyster is much more low-key. But because of the oyster-infested lim waterway area in northern Denmark, there are native oysters, and if they are allowed to encroach on the growing space, soon the whole of Denmark will be left with this kind of oysters. This is not a competition between two aquatic products, but the protection of species diversity. In the world we live in, each species will be a link in the corresponding ecological chain, and once a link goes wrong, it may cause a chain reaction like the butterfly effect.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > oysters can do but eat</h1>
The role of oysters is not just for eating. People who have eaten oysters know that although the oysters are not small, the oyster meat only occupies a small amount, and the huge shell is very strong.
Hundreds of years ago, Chinese used local materials and used the shells of oysters as building materials to build "oyster houses". "Oyster House" is a characteristic house in Lingnan, Fujian and other places, the local people use oyster shells to build on the left and right walls of the gate and the back outer wall, and then use lime, sand, soil "three-in-one" mud pieces to build, the inner wall is built with a mixture of mixed earth and stone, built in this way, so that the "Oyster House" becomes extremely strong. The oyster shell is large and hollow, built together, and the wall is isolated from more air, so the wall plays a role in natural heat preservation, which can be warm in winter and cool in summer. Although the sea breeze in southern Fujian, especially quanzhou, is cold and salty, it cannot destroy this wall. It has the characteristics of no accumulation of rain, no fear of insects and moths, warm in winter and cool in summer.
Summary: There are always people who say that as long as it can be eaten, it will not flood in China, and the oyster incident in Denmark seems to confirm this view. But in fact, oyster invasion is a kind of invasion with minimal harm in the history of biological invasion, and many invasive species with great harm cannot be solved by eating such a simple and rude way. Overall, the situation of alien species invasion in China's nature reserves is not optimistic. In the future, with the acceleration of the pace of global economic integration, domestic and foreign trade exchanges will become more and more frequent, and the risk and probability of biological invasion will also increase greatly, and each of us should be more deeply aware of this problem.