For almost a decade, the Washington Sea Grant Crab Team has been surveilling the advance of the invasive European green crab. In 2015, the team was formed to engage citizen scientists in a search for the first signs of an invasion into Puget Sound, with the first documented trap of a green crab taking place a year later in August 2016. They have now been found in more than 30 trapping sites throughout the northern half of Puget Sound and Hood Canal.
This is the primary method of maintaining some control of the population of invasive crabs: intense trapping. It works to limit damage to native species, sensitive habitats and commercial shellfish operations.
Sean McDonald, a University of Washington researcher and one of the organizers of the Crab Team, said in a new story by Salish Sea Currents that the involvement of volunteers has been critical to the surveillance program. Monitoring efforts need to be maintained over time to be meaningful, he noted, and ongoing government funding for more costly professional field work cannot be assured.
His own research, which began as green crabs were reaching Washington’s outer coast, involved studying the relationship between green crabs and the Northwest’s native crabs.
*Story adapted from the Salish Sea Currents article written by Christopher Dunagan, Puget Sound Institute.
