Brown Crab Black Liquid Discharge

by Meg
(Huntington Beach, CA)

We have caught many CA brown crabs before but never had this happen. The crabs were kept for 24 hours in the cooler covered in a towel soaked with sea water (as we have done before). As I rinsed them off in the sink prior to putting them in the boil one of them gave off a nasty black liquid out of it's mouth. I washed it off and he seemed ok. The all got cooked and they were put in the fridge for another 24 hours to be picked. While we were picking them many of them now hove this black liquid in the meat. We threw out all of the crabs but what is the black liquid and is it toxic to eat?

After an hour and half searching for an answer for you, to be honest, we found none! We have never experienced a "black liquid discharge" as you describe with your brown crab. With this said, Meg, we do have a couple suggestions for you.
One would be to get ahold of your local fish monger and ask them, or visit this website out of California...CA Deptartment of Fish and Game They may be able to offer an explanation about what the black liquid discharge is all about. Hopefully you'll get a quick reply and an accepting answer to this.
We feel you did the right thing and threw out the brown crabs, as you can never be too careful. there "could be" something going on down there in the water OR you "could be" throwing out good crab, either way, we appreciate you trusting us for an answer. We're sorry we don't have one! If you find the answer, please, visit us again and let us know what they said...if you don't mind!?