Between Formlessness and Form: A Red King Crab on the Brink of Exemplarity

Abstract: Animals are often used as examples in connection with environmental issues, highlighting specific relations between humans and nature. In this article, a close reading of two different textual materials concerning the red king crab in Norway are used to explore the tension between formlessness and form in different phases of the production of an animal example. The red king crab is used as an example in debates about the humpback salmon in several different ways: as an illustration of an invasive alien species, as a model of change, and as a non-example. As a model of change from nuisance to economic resource, the red king crab promotes the humpback salmon’s future success as a resource, and helps to incorporate it into an innovation framework.

Keywords: Invasive Alien Species (IAS); Animal Examples; Iterativity of Examples; Human-Nature Relations; Environmental Management; Charismatic Megafauna; Red King Crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus); Humpback Salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha)

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Introduction: An Examplary King Crab (Invasion)

Animals play an important role in conceptualizations of environmental problems (Doyle 2011; Heise 2016). They are used to visualize and symbolize environmental issues, such as biodiversity loss and climate change (Doyle 2011; Flinterud 2013; Bjærke 2019). Within the discourse on biodiversity loss, certain animals are frequently used for heightening public interest in species conservation. These are animals that appeal to the public because of their beauty, size, majesty or fierceness, something which has led to terms such as “flagship species” or “charismatic megafauna” (Barua 2011; Heise 2016, 24–25). Rhetorically, such charismatic species are often used as examples: they are presented as particular instances for supporting general statements about biodiversity loss, climate change, or the importance of conservation and are chosen as representatives among many species threatened by extinction. As Aristotle described in Rhetoric, examples work as a form of logical persuasion based on induction, meant to illustrate a point, to explain something, or to persuade someone (Book I, part 2). However, even when examples are mainly used as rhetorical tools, they also carry with them specific ways of thinking (Gelley 1995, 1-2; Eriksen et al. 2012, 13). Animal examples at work in the environmental discourse also act as models for imagining the future and for imposing moral judgements. Choosing an animal as an example, and what exemplary story to tell, always highlight specific relations between humans and nature, as well as the relative importance placed on different environmental problems (Bjærke 2019; Kverndokk and Bjærke 2019; Bjærke 2020).

In this article, I follow one animal species, the red king crab (Paralithodes camtschaticus), as it is turned into and used as an example. Until the middle of the twentieth century, this crab lived only in the northern Pacific Ocean. In the 1960s, however, Soviet marine researchers relocated 10.000 juvenile king crabs and more than 2.500 adult crabs to the Murmansk area to create a new fishery, and from there it spread into the Norwegian parts of the Barents Sea (Orlov and Ivanov 1978; Agnalt et al. 2023). By the early 2000s, the presence of the red king crab had become a complex political case for Norwegian authorities to solve; should the crab be treated as an invasive alien species posing a high ecological risk, or as an important economic resource for fishers? Despite this initial political uncertainty, however, it took only a few years before the red king crab was used as an example in debates about another invasive alien species in Norwegian waters: the humpback salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha). Like the red king crab, the humpback salmon had been transported from the Pacific in the middle of the twentieth century to create a new fishery in the western USSR, and then spread into Norwegian waters (Forsgren et al. 2023). Unlike the red king crab, it had not yet been subject to detailed scrutiny by the government and Parliament.

The initial transport by humans, and subsequent geographic spread, place the red king crab and the humpback salmon in an environmental discourse related to biodiversity loss, namely the discourse on “invasive alien species.” Invasive alien species are defined as species that have been introduced by humans into places outside of their natural range, with serious negative consequences for their new environment (IPBES 2023), and they are considered one of the world’s five most important drivers of biodiversity loss (IPBES 2019). The rhetoric surrounding invasive alien species has, in many cases, been fierce and dramatic. They are presented as dangerous invaders that reproduce extremely fast and spread rapidly and uncontrollably (Subramaniam 2001; Frawley and McCalman 2014; Lidström et al. 2015). The politics and management surrounding specific invasive alien species are, however, tempered by double standards. Many of the species defined as invasive aliens are important economic resources, and there is still an enormous human transport of species around the world, in the name of economic benefit. There is thus a strong tension between the perceived unruliness and danger of invasive alien species and the wish to develop newly arrived species as resources, and this tension must be addressed when arguing for either view. One of the ways in which the wish to develop new resources is argued for, is by using alien species that are already handled through a well-functioning management regime as examples for species surrounded by more uncertainty.

My exploration into the red king crab as transformed through exemplarity of this dynamic has two aims. First, I make a detailed investigation of the process in which one animal species is turned into, and used, as an example. I will focus this investigation of one aspect of exemplarity, namely how the example is kept within and relies upon a tension between formlessness and form, and the roles played by framing and cutting, and by temporalization, in the process of producing and managing this tension. Second, I explore how the red king crab example works as a way of promoting or inhibiting certain understandings of invasive alien species. In connection with the second aim, I discuss the use of the red king crab example as what Asdal and Huse (2023, 29) have termed a “tool of valuation.”

Exemplarity Between Formlessness and Form

My analysis is based on close readings of two different textual materials: a White Paper to the Norwegian Parliament from 2007, entitled Management of red king crab , and a set of newspaper articles from 2008 and onwards, where the red king crab is used as an example in debates about the humpback salmon. In Norway, White Papers are documents produced by the government to present their politics to Parliament and substantiate it with the aid of expert knowledge. In the White Paper, management of the red king crab is a political issue to be solved. The question Norwegian authorities grappled with was whether one should try to eradicate the species, because of its status as an invasive alien species posing a high risk to local ecosystems, or whether it should be managed as an important economic resource for the fishers in northern Norway. The aim of the White Paper was to present a solution to this problem and to propose a new management regime for the red king crab.

My analysis is based on the White Paper as a whole, but will pay special attention to how the red king crab is presented in four boxes that are interspersed throughout the document. The box is a genre more defined by its format than by its contents. It is present within several non-fictional genres, such as policy documents, research reports, and schoolbooks, and is usually separated from the main text by a frame of some kind and the word “box” in the title. A box can for instance contain a chapter summary, an anecdote, a story, a scenario, a case study, or an example. Sometimes a box supplements or expands the main text, sometimes it replicates it, and sometimes it includes themes that are not addressed in the text at all. In the White Paper on the red king crab, there are four boxes, each of which contains a story involving the red king crab. The boxes are entitled: Box 3.1 The reproductive cycle of the red king crab ; Box 3.2 The red king crab and the 2007 Norwegian Blacklist; Box 8.1 Small crabs at full speed west ; and Box 10.1 Bocuse d’or. I contend that as these specific stories are “boxed out” in such a way, they come to represent the four most important aspects of the red king crab in the White Paper, forming a pre-stage for red king crab exemplarity.

The second part of my source material consists of four Norwegian newspaper articles where the red king crab is used as an example in debates about the humpback salmon. The red king crab and the humpback salmon have followed each other closely in Norwegian newspapers for more than seventy years (Nasjonalbiblioteket 2023). For many years, however, there was little focus on the humpback salmon, and the red king crab held most of the media’s attention until well into the 2000s. Then, the population of humpback salmon in Norwegian waters increased rapidly, and in conjunction, the newspaper coverage discussing it and using the red king crab as an example. A search in the media-monitoring database Retriever, which covers most Norwegian newspapers and media groups, with the search string “humpback salmon* AND red king crab*”¹ identified 109 printed and 147 digital newspaper articles from 2008 to 2023. I have selected four of these articles for close reading, because I found them to be representative of the different ways in which the red king crab is used as an example in debates about the humpback salmon.

In the introduction to his book Exemplum, John D. Lyons defines examples as concrete instances made to support a general statement, and gives seven characteristics of examples that he finds productive in his studies of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century exemplarity. He states that these characteristics “may prove to have an application to the examples of other periods and languages” (Lyons 1989, 25). The first of these characteristics is what he terms iterativity and multiplicity : the fact that examples depend on repetition. The other characteristics are described as exteriority, discontinuity, rarity, artificiality, undecidability, and excess (Lyons 1989, 25–34). Both Lyons and other researchers have pointed out tensions within the use of examples: they function as both illustrations and models, they are rare but also representative, and they are artificial, but also gesture toward reality (Lyons 1989; Gelley 1995, 5–6; Eriksen et al. 2012, 12–14; Noyes 2016; Eriksen 2019; Bjørnstad 2021, 63). The tension I focus on in this article is the tension between the need for iteration, and what Lyons has termed the “excess” of the example—the fact that the example always has characteristics that exceed what is covered by the generalization. I have termed this a tension between formlessness and form. On one hand, the less excessive characteristics and more stringent form an example has, the fewer rhetorical situations it fits into. Form, thus, decreases the number of situations where the example can be (relevantly) iterated. On the other hand, the more rhetorical situations an example is made to fit into and is iterated in, the closer it will come to formlessness and self-contradiction. Finding a balance between formlessness and form is thus an important part of the work that goes into turning the lifeways and being of an animal species into an example (cf. Evans 2023).

Such a tension between formlessness and form is similar to the distinctions between a case and an example. When something is brought up as a case, which is meant for discussion, it has to be presented as undecided or formless. When something is brought up as an example, which is meant to persuade, it has to be presented as resolved or formed. However, this would imply that formlessness and form constitute an either/or. My point is rather that the tension between formlessness and form, and thus the rhetoric functioning of the animal species example, is the product of a continual process of rhetorical work that takes place both before and after the case has been turned into an example.

In this article, I aim to show how formlessness is turned into form through the reduction of the amount of excess kept within the frame of the example, but also to show that keeping some remains of this excess might be necessary to provide the example with sufficient possibility for future iteration. The two types of textual material that I have analyzed for this argument make it possible to highlight different kinds of effort that support the iterative process of red king crab exemplarity at different times. I argue that this textual material provides an apt case both for discussing the work involved in turning an animal into an example, as well as some of the empirical implications of using that specific animal to engage in political discussions surrounding the management of other animals as well.

What is a Red King Crab?

The red king crab can weigh up to 13 kilos, and its leg span can reach almost two meters. It is quite a large and powerful shape for a crab, so when it is found in new areas, it is noticeable. After the first sightings in Norwegian waters in the late 1970s, the red king crab population increased slowly, but in the 1990s grew so large that a research fishery was initiated to monitor the species (St.mld. 1994-1995, 14, 38). This crab was described as a new and interesting resource, but not yet ready for cultivation in commercial fisheries (Norsk Fiskerinæring 1994). Since 2002, however, the red king crab became subjected commercial fishery in Norway, firstly co-managed with Russia, and later through separate management of the Norwegian stock since 2007.

As the red king crab population in Norwegian waters increased, there was a growing concern among fishers, as well as scientists, regarding the effects of the species on the local ecosystem. Its long legs got stuck in fishing nets, hindering the cod fishery, and its eating habits seemed to have a detrimental impact on the local fauna. During the 1990s, focus on “invasive alien species” as a category was increasing among scientists and environmental policy makers. In 1992, Norway signed the Convention on Biological Diversity, according to which the contracting parties shall “as far as possible and as appropriate prevent the introduction of, control or eradicate those alien species which threaten ecosystems, habitats or species” (The Convention on Biological Diversity 2016). In the late 1990s and early 2000s, invasive alien species, including the red king crab, were therefore addressed in several Norwegian political documents (e.g. St.mld. 2001-2002; St.mld. 2002-2003), and parallel with the research fishery, Norwegian authorities initiated an exploration of the ecological effects of the red king crab in Norway (St.mld. 1994-1995, 38).

In 2007, the red king crab, as an invasive alien, was foregrounded in two official policy documents: the 2007 Norwegian Blacklist: Ecological Risk Analysis of Alien Species and the cross-sectorial Strategy on Invasive Alien Species (Gederaas et al. 2007; Norwegian Ministry of the Environment 2007). The first document, the list, placed the red king crab in the category “High Risk,” defined as “species that have negative impacts on indigenous biological diversity,” while the cross-sectorial strategy stated that: “The red king crab is a valuable resource, but there is now growing concern about the fact that it is an alien species.” For the government, it was time to address and resolve the issue of how best to manage the red king crab. This resulted in the White Paper to the Norwegian Parliament Management of the red king crab (St.mld. 2006-2007).²

This White Paper has a quite standard setup for the political writing genre of Norwegian White Papers. That is, it consists of a seemingly neutral text condensed with scientific and economic facts. After an introduction, it presents a historical background and scientific knowledge status of the red king crab. It then discusses the impact of the crab on settlement, business, culture and nature, and obligations under international law, before coming to the policy discussion: a proposal of a new management regime for the red king crab in Norwegian waters, a recommendation to the Parliament, and an assessment of the economic and administrative consequences of the proposal.

The introductory chapter puts significant stress on the uncertainty of how the red king crab should be understood by the Parliament. “Uncertainty about the red king crab’s possible effects on the ecosystem has made it difficult to have a clear idea of whether the king crab should be considered a resource or a nuisance,” it states, and later in the same section, “We face fundamental challenges and political choiceswhen it comes to the management of the red king crab in Norwegian areas” (St.mld. 2006-2007, 9). However, the text also includes many statements about what the red king crab is, such as:

• “The king crab is an introduced species” (7)
• “The king crab is a scavenger” (35)
• “The king crab is the only species harvested commercially in our northern waters, which lives almost exclusively on the production in the benthic fauna” (37)
• “The king crab is undoubtedly ‘here to stay’” (63)
• “The king crab is a new element in Norwegian fisheries” (121)

The uncertainty, then, does not mainly reside in what the red king crab is—it is all these things and many more—but in finding a way of managing its conflicting aspects. Finding such a way means playing some aspects of the red king crab down, while highlighting others. Thus, the White Paper reduces the number of alternative and conflicting red king crab. This process is very similar to how an example is cut out and thus leaves behind an excess of characteristics that are not considered relevant (Lyons 1989, 34). Although the different aspects of the king crab are not used for exemplifying anything, this reduction constitutes a first step on the way toward future exemplarity of the red king crab.

Four Boxes of King Crab

One way the White Paper highlights particular red king crabs over others is through text-based, informational boxes throughout the document. Four unique stories of red king crabs were represented in these boxes. Although these boxes constitute few pages compared with the length of the whole White Paper, which is 145 pages long, they are written with a different writing style from the rest of the document and are obviously meant as a more popularized form of communication (and persuasion). The four boxes could, of course, be understood as randomly chosen anecdotes, included just to spice up a boring political text. However, as rhetorical devices, they do something similar to examples. They gesture out of the pure discourse of the text and toward support in a commonly accepted referential world (Lyons 1989). They describe some, but not all of the aspects of the red king crab that have been described in the main bulk of the text.

In Box 3.1 The reproductive cycle of the red king crab, the reproduction of the red king crab is described in detail. The text of the box explains, “In early spring, the entire sexually mature part of the crab population gathers in shallow areas to hatch the eggs from the previous year’s spawning, spawn and mate” and continues: “At this time, the crab can therefore be observed in large and dense concentrations in shallow water (< 30 meters). The female crabs molt in conjunction with the spawning, and findings of large quantities of empty shells in these shallow areas can at first glance often be perceived as accumulations of dead crabs” (St.mld. 2006-2007, 25). The description in Box 3.1 utilizes scientific language. In this portrayal the red king crab is a biological species with a certain physiology and life cycle. The box includes no obvious value statements regarding the red king crab, and the language appears simple, objective and descriptive. However, a few points in the citation above are worth noticing. One is the description that the crabs gather in dense concentrations, which make the large masses of crabs mentioned in some of the other boxes into a seasonal phenomenon. Another is the last sentence, which seems to refer to some well-known stories of large accumulations of dead crabs previously published in local newspapers. These points mainly aim to clear up misunderstandings about king crab behavior, but also illuminate how the activities of the crabs themselves have played a role in human understandings of it.

Box 3.2 The red king crab and the 2007 Norwegian Blacklist starts with a description of the 2007 Norwegian Blacklist for alien species, the risk assessments done in conjunction with it, and the three risk categories into which alien species are divided (St.mld. 2006-2007, 31). The text states that the red king crab is categorized in the highest category, High Risk, because it is a vector for parasites and diseases that can harm “natural biological diversity.” Two such parasites and their possible effects are described. Like in the first box, a descriptive natural science language is used, with Latin names included for all species. However, unlike in the first box, this red king crab is not a random species. It is an invasive alien, which is set in contrast to a “natural biological diversity.” The combination of a natural science language and the focus on ecological effects of “high-risk” species establishes the actions of the red king crab as a problem for other species and the ecosystem, while possible consequences with regard to human interests are not mentioned.

Box 8.1 Small crabs at full speed west is held in an entirely different style from the first two boxes. This passage was extracted from an interview with fisher Ulf-Helge Johansen in Fiskeribladet, after he tried crab fishing just west of 26 °E (St.mld. 2006-2007, 76). The cited parts of the interview are mainly held in the voice of the interviewee. After an initial description of how he found all his crab traps crammed with small red king crabs, he stated:

This is not tempting to repeat. Now we have taken the crab traps ashore. Only a handful of crabs were over four kilos and marketable. The rest of the catch consisted of ‘one million’ small crabs without value. … [This became] a purely loss-making enterprise. If the authorities really mean that one should conduct an extinction fishery to stop or delay the crab’s spread westwards, money must be put on the table. It goes without saying that it is out of the question for us to work for free.

Johansen further explained that he had not the slightest doubt that the crab was migrating westward, and that “it is only a matter of time before the crab destroys large areas and fishing grounds in western Finnmark” if nothing is done. Like in the first box, this text describes a large number of crabs gathered in one place. Here, however, this is not only a biological observation; these red king crabs are small and fill the gear, generally making a nuisance of themselves, as the rhetoric of the comment suggests. Like the previous box, this too presents a problematic red king crab. Here, however, the crab represents a problem for humans rather than for nature. It does not conform to how a red king crab as an economic resource should look and act and thus shows that an extinction fishery, that is, a fishery intended for removing the species completely from an area, cannot be fueled by economic gain. It will depend on economic incentives from the authorities.

The fourth box is entitled Box 10.1 Bocuse d’Or. It relates the story of how meat from the red king crab was selected as raw material for Bocuse d’Or, the unofficial world championship for culinary art. After a short description of the competition, the text cites a newspaper article about two French master chefs who visited a fishing vessel, fishing red king crab for the competition. One of the master chefs is reported as saying that he is “... highly impressed both with the working conditions of the fishers, and that they also manage to quality treat the catch, release crabs that are too small or of the wrong sex, in this way taking care of the stocks” (St.mld. 2006-2007, 88). The box ends with the following passage:

This is the fourth time that Norwegian seafood has been selected as a raw material in Bocuse d`Or, and it says a lot about the fantastic variety and the unique quality of Norwegian seafood. The selection of Norwegian red king crab as a raw material in this world championship also provides a unique opportunity to be introduced in the top segment of the restaurant business in Europe. (St.mld. 2006-2007, 88)

In this box, the red king crab is obviously a commodity, but not just any commodity. The description shows the red king crab as a luxury food of Norwegian origin. However, making the crab into a luxury food demands human effort. To be a commercial success the crab population must be tended; individual crabs must be carefully selected and taken care of from sea to table. However, as Norwegian fishers can do this work, the Norwegian red king crab has acquired a unique Norwegian quality, and is fit for high-end restaurants in Europe as well as for important culinary competitions.

The stories in the four boxes are not mutually exclusive, and together they highlight different aspects of the red king crab: in the first box it is a biological species, in the second an invasive alien species, in the third, a nuisance which must be controlled through the application of economic subsidies, and in the fourth, a Norwegian luxury seafood. These four depictions of red king crabs all center on the human perception and evaluation of the crab and fit well with the conclusion of the White Paper, which proposes a management solution of the red king crab through a double regime. One part of the regime aims to eradicate the species to hinder its spread. This approach would be implemented for the part of the Norwegian coast extending west from the longitude 26 ⁰E, which crosses the Norwegian part of the Barents Sea, and would be supported by subsidies. The other part of the regime was aimed toward a harvestable stock of red king crabs east of the same latitude, and with a quota system designed to benefit local fishers who had suffered economic losses because of the crab’s success. Such a management regime takes all the four red king crabs presented in the four boxes into account: the biological species that reproduces and spreads, the invasive alien with a high ecological risk, the nuisance that must be removed with the help of subsidies, and the luxury seafood. By presenting the red king crab through four narratives and gesturing to each of them in their proposed management solution, the White Paper reduces the number of alternative red king crab, but still manages to highlight the complexity of the red king crab as political case. Thus, the four versions of the red king crab can be seen as a four-piece jigsaw puzzle, where the pieces always fit together and form a picture.

One-piece Examples

I will now turn to the use of the red king crab in newspaper articles about another invasive alien species: the humpback salmon. Similarly to the red king crab, the humpback salmon had been listed as a High-Risk species in the 2007 Norwegian Blacklist (Gederaas et al. 2007, 80). Afterwards, however, it has not been the subject of much political discussion, and it was not until 2021 that a proposed action plan against it was published (NINA and Statsforvalteren i Troms og Finnmark 2021). I have chosen to bring with me the four different red king crabs from the four boxes into this part of the analysis as well, using them to highlight what aspects of the red king crab are included in the different newspaper articles on humpback salmons. This does not mean that I claim that the four red king crabs presented in the boxes in the White Paper were copied directly by journalists, or that there is a direct connection between the two types of material. Rather, I argue that when analyzing red king crab exemplarity empirically, the four red king crabs from the boxes represent the four most important aspects to look for. This is because they are so closely connected with a management solution that has had a vital impact on both communities and fishers in the northern parts of Norway.

Having the four-piece jigsaw puzzle from the White Paper in mind when analyzing the material, makes it possible to show whether the same aspects of the red king crab that were considered relevant when creating the management solution, are also considered relevant when the red king crab is used as an example. Thus, using the four red king crabs from the boxes presents the possibility of both examining how this rhetoric work is done, and discussing the different understandings of nature the different choices imply.

The article “The humpback salmon invades salmon rivers in Finnmark” was published in the national newspaper Nationen in 2009. It describes the humpback salmon as occurring in large numbers in two rivers in the northernmost parts of Norway and claims that it might pose a threat to the local wild salmon (Schulstad 2009). The newspaper article includes an interview with a fisheries biologist, Rune Mundal, who has studied the prevalence and establishment of humpback salmon in Finnmark and urges Norwegian environmental authorities to take the problem of the humpback salmon seriously: “This could be the same story as with the red king crab if we do not tackle the problem immediately”, he says (Schulstad 2009).

Although the “story of the red king crab” is referred to twice in the interview, there is no mention of what this story is. In the context of the article, it still seems clear that the red king crab is an example of an invasive alien species with a high ecological risk and that “the story” illustrates what happens if an invasive alien species is not tackled immediately. This is corroborated by the use of the word “invades” in the title, and the lead paragraph, which states that “Russian release of Pacific salmon in The Kola Peninsula over many decades creates concern in Finnmark.” The fact that the interviewee does not seem to find it necessary to mention what he considers the story of the red king crab to be, shows that at least for him, there is no doubt of what it is an example of. It illustrates a negative situation that should be avoided. With reference to the analogy of a four-piece jigsaw puzzle I evoked for describing the four boxes in the White Paper, I refer to this as a one-piece example. The generalization relies on only one of the four aspects of the red king crab. Aspects such as the red king crab as commodity or luxury food reside outside the frame of the red king crab’s exemplarity. By removing these other aspects–turning them into what Lyons call “excess”–the red king crab is reduced to being only an invasive alien.

The second newspaper article makes use of a different puzzle piece. The article is from 2021, published on the Norwegian national news site NRK.no , and entitled “Russian invader is a danger to Norwegian wild salmon–now fish entrepreneurs want to make money from it.” The article features a fishing millionaire who wants to develop a humpback salmon fishery:

Fisher Svein Lyder sees great opportunities in turning the alien species into a commodity. –When it has already arrived, you have to try to harvest and utilize it, says the general manager of Lyder Fisk AS. He has already had great success with a previously blacklisted species: the red king crab. The species, which was first discovered in Varanger in 1977, after it was released in Russian waters in the 1950s, has contributed to an annual revenue of up to 300 million NOK for his company. –The red king crab has built us up to be where we are today, says Lyder. Now he wants history to repeat itself–with humpback salmon. (Pedersen et al. 2021)

In this article as in the previous, history is mentioned as repeating itself. While the interviewee in the previous article referred to a history of ecological problems, the interviewee in this article refers to a history of economic success. Here, the red king crab illustrates the general statement that alien species can be commodities. The puzzle piece brought to the foreground is the one from the fourth box of the White Paper, where the red king crab is described as an economic success. A difference from the previous article is that the interviewee does not seem to take for granted that the reader will understand or agree with his use of this aspect of the red king crab as an example. He explains his reasoning in detail, giving both the annual revenue and describing how his company relies on the red king crab economically. Although he insists on the success story, he also keeps the alien aspect of the red king crab, presenting the species as “previously blacklisted.”

The fact that the red king crab and the humpback salmon have very similar historical backgrounds, being moved from the North Pacific to the Barents Sea in the 1950s and 1960s, is explained in both the articles. This aspect of the red king crab seems to be important for underlining its relevance as an example for the humpback salmon. However, as the two newspaper articles show, this common “background” leaves the red king crab open to being used in completely opposite ways. The red king crab can be used as an example of different and even contradictory general statements, depending on which piece from the four-piece jigsaw puzzle the author of the text chooses to use. The aspect that makes it relevant as an example for the humpback salmon’s impact in Norway in one newspaper article is exactly what is left out to make it relevant in the other. Each way of using the red king crab as example has reduced its formlessness by cutting away parts of the bigger picture of the animal’s role in the ecosystem. However, this also means that the amount of excess knowledge that is placed outside the frame of the example has increased significantly in the one-piece example. This excess knowledge can threaten to overthrow the rhetoric work done by the example if, for instance, used for producing a counterexample.

A Model of Change

In addition to being examples of completely different aspects of the red king crab, there is another difference between the crab examples in the two previously cited newspaper articles: temporality. In the first example, the red king crab is only described as a species causing ecological trouble. In the second, a temporal move has taken place, and the red king crab is described as a “previously blacklisted” species, which has become an economic resource. A gap in time has been introduced between the red king crab as an invasive alien species and the red king crab as a valuable commodity, implying that the crab has gone through some kind of change.

This opening of a temporal gap, between what in the White Paper are different concurring aspects of the red king crab’s life, is even more visible in a third newspaper article, entitled “The Minister hit the mark on a blind test of salmon” published in the regional newspaper iTromsø (Hagen 2021). In this article, the then Minister of Fisheries tasted different kinds of salmon, including humpback salmon, in a blind test. Under the sub-headline “Compares with the red king crab,” the article includes an interview with fisher Erling Haugan from Bugøynes in Finnmark:

Billions of kroner worth of red king crab are landed annually in little Bugøynes, which houses 200 permanent residents. And Haugan draws clear parallels between the presently hated humpback salmon and the formerly oh-so-hated red king crab, which is now one of the most luxurious goods we export from Norway.
[...]
The king crab was hated by the fishers when, a few decades ago, it wandered across the border in increasingly large numbers and got stuck in the fishing nets. It has now established itself off the coast of Finnmark and is a very valuable resource.
–The same will happen with humpback salmon. It will become a huge resource with far higher quality than other salmon, predicts Haugan. (Hagen 2021, my translation)

In this article, the red king crab is used as an example of an economic resource, “one of the most luxurious goods” exported from Norway. However, it is also an example of changing human perceptions. The red king crab has gone from being hated by the fishers to being valued by them. When the interviewee states that the same will happen with the humpback salmon, he does not only mean that it will become a luxury, gaining high prices, but also that perceptions of it will change over time. The exemplarity is thus twofold: the red king crab is an example in its present form, but it is also an example of the change it has gone through. As the humpback salmon is presently met with concern and hatred, the red king crab exemplifies that such concern and hatred may disappear over time.

This way of using the red king crab includes several different aspects of the red king crab within the frame of the example. In opposition to the White Paper, however, where the four different aspects were all placed in the present, two pieces of the jigsaw puzzle—being an invasive alien and a nuisance—are here moved to the past. As the different aspects are shifted in time relative to each other, the story of the red king crab becomes a movement from one aspect to another. It becomes an example of change. Temporalization becomes a way of increasing form without moving other aspects of the red king crab completely outside the frame of the example, turning them into an excess that threatens to overthrow the example. Instead, other pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are kept inside the frame, making the example more flexible and resistant to critique. In addition, the temporalization of the red king crab example makes it similar to other exemplary tales of change, such as stories of religious conversion, which could turn a sinner into a saint. By gesturing toward such tales, the temporalization also gives the example an increased moral weight.

Denial of Exemplarity

What all the newspaper articles analyzed above have in common is that the red king crab is used as an example in the framework of management discussions. In the first article, the fisheries biologist “expects Norwegian environmental authorities to take the humpback salmon problem seriously” (Schulstad 2009). In the second, the fisheries millionaire demands that “the authorities make it economically favorable to fish it” (Pedersen et al. 2021), and in the third, the then Minister of Fisheries is challenged on whether to treat the humpback salmon as a resource or not (Hagen 2021). This shows that it is, to a large degree, the government’s management solution for the red king crab which has made it such an important reference point.

Not all agree that the red king crab should be a reference point, however. In an article in the national newspaper Klassekampen in 2023 entitled “Fights the humpback salmon,” the journalist confronts the then Norwegian Minister of Climate and Environment with the red king crab as an example of change, from unwanted in the 1990s to “the fishers’ best source of income.” The Minister answers: “Humpback salmon shall not be allowedto become a resource” (Rapp 2023).

As humpback salmon is already a commodity in many other parts of the world and used for human consumption, it is obviously already considered a resource. What the Minister here denies is rather that the humpback salmon should ever be managed as a resource by the Norwegian government. An explanation of why the Minister needs to be so clear about this is given later in the interview:

–It is a national task to stop the spread of humpback salmon. Eastern Finnmark is now a front line in the war. If we lose in Finnmark, it will soon be in Southern Norway and in the Oslofjord, says Eide.

He is aware that it is tasty and attractive as a food fish, and that many compare humpback salmon to the resource the red king crab constitutes.

–Unlike red king crab, humpback salmon causes serious environmental problems, since it dies and rots in the rivers, says the Minister. (Rapp 2023)

Here, the Minister explicitly denies the similarities between the red king crab and the humpback salmon, and thus also the relevance of the red king crab as an example. According to him, the humpback salmon is “unlike” the red king crab. This unlikeness consists of the fact that humpback salmon causes serious environmental problems. The Minister does not deny that the red king crab has become a resource. However, he does deny that it poses an ecological problem. By doing this, he also denies its relevance as an example to the humpback salmon, which according to him is instead in “a state of war” (Rapp 2023).

In 2023, the red king crab is still categorized as an invasive alien species with “Severe [Ecological] Impact” in Norway (Agnalt et al. 2023). In his quest to avoid the red king crab being used as an example of an invasive alien species turned into an economic resource, the Minister chooses to ignore this fact. He turns the red king crab into a one-piece example of a resource, and moves the red king crab as invasive alien species and nuisance outside the frame of the example. This time, however, the increased form is used for making the red king crab a non-example, not an example. By playing down the complexity of the red king crab, the Minister tries to make the red king crab irrelevant as an example and model for the management of the dangerous humpback salmon, and thus to decrease its potential for reiteration. This way, he seeks to remove the possibility for the humpback salmon of imitating a temporal change. When he presents the red king crab as if it has only ever been a resource, it cannot represent a possibility of change from problem to resource for the humpback salmon.

The non-exemplarity, in this context, stems from the opposite side of an unsolved case, presented for discussion. The unsolved case has too much formlessness to work as an example. Here, on the other hand, the statement that the red king crab is too unlike the humpback salmon, originates from too much form and specificity. When the Minister argues that the red king crab shall not become a model for the humpback salmon, he does it on the grounds that it has only one form (a resource), and that this form is not relevant for iteration in this context. To be considered an example of a possible management regime for the invasive alien humpback salmon, the red king crab must be an economically successful resource, but it must also include the negative categories of invasive alien and nuisance in some way. As an example, it must retain a certain formlessness.

Form and the Rhetoric Power of an Animal Example

This analysis of the red king crab highlights what could be termed as different phases in the process of becoming an example. First, the reductive work that happens before the crab has become an example, and which produces form from formlessness by focusing on a few aspects of it. Second, the one-piece example, where a singular aspect of the crab’s life and behavior is foregrounded and used as example, while the others are left out. Third, the model of change, where different aspects of the crab are included in the example but separated in time. Fourth, the non-example, where the crab is given so much form that it becomes irrelevant.

Although I have analyzed and discussed these different phases separately, I do not claim that an example must be categorized by them one at a time, or that they should occur in chronological order. They are all parts of the continuous negotiation of whether a specific animal species works rhetorically as intended or not, which will again decide whether it will be used in the future. What I do claim, however, is that highlighting these four phases of exemplarity in my material demonstrates the role of the work connected to iteration and excess, which is done before the crab has even become an example. It also demonstrates how not only cutting and framing, but also temporalizing the animal example is an important part of making iterations of the example possible. Both reduction through cutting and framing and temporalization influence the tension between formlessness and form in the example. While the reduction of the possible aspects of an example gives the example form, it also reduces the possibility for iteration. Temporalization of some of these aspects, on the other hand, increases the amount of information that can be kept without the example losing its power as a concrete instance of a generalization. Thus, it decreases the possibility that the rhetorical effect of the example collapses from too much excess.

A third point is the advantage of using an animal species subjected to a broad scientific and political process that has established a number of different aspects of it in advance. The red king crab has been given a large amount of political attention. With two White Papers to Parliament wholly concerned with red king crab management, it has been given an air of political importance that only a few other animals such as wolves, reindeer and wild salmon have in Norway. Combined with and in addition to this political relevance, the red king crab is subject to a number of activities with the aim of influencing its reputation in one way or another: The species’ movements and actions along the Norwegian coast have generated hundreds of newspaper articles and research reports (Nasjonalbiblioteket 2023), it has led to campaigns from environmental organizations, but also to king crab safaris and festivals in its honor (NRK 2010; Hesla and Stavseth 2012). The fact that the red king crab has been an economic success for fishers in Norway’s northernmost county, Finnmark, is also part of what makes it special. In 2022, more than 2100 tons of red king crab were caught, giving a value of over 841 million Norwegian kroner (just under 80 million USD) (Fiskeridirektoratet n.d.). In a region where fisheries are regularly subject to crises, the present success of the red king crab fishery stands out. Combine this with its size and monster-look (e.g. Vader 1977), and the red king crab has features typical to the “charismatic megafauna” and “flagship species” that are known from the biodiversity discourse.

Over time, these three—the inclusion of different aspects, temporalization, and being an animal that stands out—all help the red king crab gain momentum as an example by increasing iterativity. The rhetorical power of the red king crab increases through the iteration of the stories told about it in different political contexts. There is power in numbers. With every use, the red king crab, as an example for the humpback salmon, grows stronger until it must be considered, whether the speaker wants it to be, or not.

The Red Crab as a Tool of Innovation

As stated in the introduction, analyzing the use of animal examples in different environmental discourses may uncover or highlight specific relations between humans and nature. The different ways in which the red king crab is used as an example also seem to rely on different understandings of nature. In the first newspaper article, (Schulstad 2009), the understanding of the red king crab as an invasive alien species trumps all else. As an invasive alien species, the red king crab is a problem, and if the authorities do not intervene and stop it, the same thing will happen with the humpback salmon. The view that both the red king crab and the humpback salmon are problems because of their status as invasive alien species status is a view based on a global and Western scientific understanding of nature and closely connected with international environmental policies such as the Convention on Biological Diversity. For simplicity, this view could be termed “nature as a site of biodiversity.” In such a view, invasive alien species are intrinsically considered negative, since, as a group, they are an important cause of global biodiversity loss. The view is based on a certain spatio-temporal understanding of nature, which is that species that are moved by humans, across the geographical and climatic boundaries within which they evolved, have a fundamentally negative effect on global biodiversity.

In the other three newspaper articles, the use of the red king crab seems to imply a different relationship to nature. In these articles, the description of the red king crab focuses on factors like how much ecological damage it causes, or how successful it can be as an economic resource in a local or national context. This implies an understanding of nature as local or national, or as a site of human extraction, and is dependent on changes in human perception. Importantly, this view of nature as a site of extraction also means that the management choices associated with a species can be based on much shorter timescales than the global view of nature as a site of biodiversity. Future expectations regarding the species are not framed in geological or evolutionary timescales, but instead in economic terms and the rise and fall of markets.

Unlike humans, the exemplarity of animals is often attached to them as species, not as individuals. This is also the case with the red king crab. Human practices have made the red king crab into what it is an example of. However, there is also a kind of reciprocity in this process of turning the red king crab into an example, which involves both the crab and the humpback salmon, in addition to humans. This reciprocity is stronger in the understanding of nature as a site of extraction than in the understanding of nature as a site of biodiversity. As each red king crab grows, eats, reproduces and moves, bothering some species and pleasing others (including humans), they themselves play a part, both in becoming exemplary and in producing authority. Their initial negative effect on local fisheries and economies in the northernmost parts of Norway played an important part in turning them into a political issue. The fact that they thrive and reproduce in Norwegian waters has made them into attractive commodities. For the red king crab to become an example, however, other species with enough similar characteristics, such as the humpback salmon, have had to show up and become subject to similar reflections on pros and cons of environmental management, and these reflections again influence the public perception of the red king crab. It is because he wants to make sure that the red king crab is not used as a model for humpback salmon management, that the Minister for Climate and Environment declares that the red king crab is not an environmental problem. Within an understanding of nature as a site of extraction, being made and unmade an example thus influences popular perceptions of the species used as examples, not only the species the example is meant to influence.

The fact that the view of nature as a site of extraction is not framed in geological or evolutionary timescales, but in economic terms, also means that only this second understanding of nature allows for making the red king crab into a model of change. On an evolutionary timescale, the crab will be considered an invasive alien species and a problem in the infinite future. However, comparing the red king crab as a one-piece example and the red king crab as a story of change from one puzzle piece to another, highlights an important difference in agency between animal examples and exemplary humans. Although the red king crab can be an illustration of aspects of the humpback salmon or of what will happen to the humpback salmon, it will never be considered as a model for the humpback salmon to emulate. Although, characteristics of the red king crab itself may be described in detail, the changes referred to in the examples do not gesture back to the crab itself, but to the human management of the species. They gesture back to human understandings of nature in general and understandings of invasive alien species more specifically. The temporalization of the red king crab thus presupposes a move from animal change to human induced change (the actions of authorities, managers and fishers), in addition to a view of nature as localized and changeable.

In their book Nature-made Economy Asdal and Huse (2023, 29–33) argue for approaching different economizations of the ocean through investigations of “tools of valuation,” which is their term for all the different practices involved in producing certain nature-economic entanglements. Asdal and Huse also underline the agency of the animal species themselves in such processes of valuation. My analysis shows that animal examples can be important tools of valuation. Through exemplarity, invasive alien species and humans using them as examples can change understandings of the animals involved and argue for new management practices. As they are framed and cut out in different ways, the exemplary stories of the red king crab become tools of valuation that support different understandings of nature, and thus also different ways of viewing the relationship between nature and economic policy.

Asdal and Huse (2023, 159–61) argue that the present management of the ocean is characterized by what they have termed “the innovation paradigm”—a discourse where nature is understood as a space to continually look for new resources and markets to develop, and where cooperation and problem-solving among human actors is an intrinsic part of the process. The use of the red king crab as a story of successful transformation, from invasive alien to resource, fits very well within a framework of innovation, where authorities, managers, scientists, and fishers must all be problem-solvers and work together to realize the economic value of new biological resources. For one thing, the temporality built into the example is very similar to the temporality that is crucial to innovation: a temporal move from failure to success. With the red king crab, this move has already happened. As a model of change, it can therefore be used as a tool of valuation to promote the innovation paradigm. Although the humpback salmon is presently a failure as an economic resource since it is “not allowed” by the environmental authorities to be developed as one, the red king crab still represents a possibility of change. It helps reframing the humpback salmon as a future success, the next object of innovation. Within the innovation paradigm, the history of the red king crab becomes part of a pool of possible human actions that can be taken to realize the resource potential of other similar species. This means that for the humpback salmon, the right effort from humans and help from an exemplary red king crab might make it the next Norwegian luxury food at Bocuse d’Or.