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November 3, 2016
This series of three posts was originally written in August, but was pre-empted by the news of European green crab captures on San Juan Island and in Padilla Bay. Better late than never, here are our field notes on green crab trapping in Willapa Bay during August of this year. Of course, reading back on it after spending September in the mud, our previous eagerness to get in the field now seems…charming.
We staff members of the Crab Team couldn’t take ...
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October 1, 2016
“When we appreciate and understand all of the benefits of our locally produced seafood, we’ll be motivated to ensure that future generations can enjoy them as well.”– Deb Granger, SeaFeast General Manager
The first inaugural SeaFeast event in Bellingham aimed to introduce the community to the thriving, but little-known seafood industry and culture of Bellingham Bay.
To that end, organizers of Bellingham SeaFeast 2016 unveiled a variety of events, including seafood sampling, boat rides on Bellingham Bay, cooking demonstrations, contests and ...
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October 18, 2016
You’ve heard a lot from us about sightings of the European green crabs that have occurred over the past two months. But we thought you would enjoy hearing about the experience of the first discovery from the Crab Team volunteers who made it. Craig Staude captains the group of 4 Crab Team volunteers who sample monthly at Westcott Bay. He wrote an article on the experience Sylvia Yamada, Oregon State University researcher and green crab expert, for
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October 6, 2016
The recent captures of invasive European green crabs, the first documented in Washington’s Salish Sea, have garnered a lot of recent media attention. We are thrilled that local residents are eager to help protect shorelines from this global invasive species and have set about looking for European green crabs as they walk the beach, paddle the waters, and pull up crab pots. Given 2,500 miles or so of shoreline, this network of “Eyes on the Beach” is critical to ...
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September 23, 2016
In late August 2016, a team of volunteer monitors caught an invasive European green crab (Carcinus maenas) in Westcott Bay, San Juan Island, marking the first confirmation of this global invader in Washington’s Puget Sound. A few weeks later, an additional green crab was found in Padilla Bay by staff of the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (Padilla Bay NERR).
After the discovery in the San Juan Islands, a rapid response action to determine the size of the population ...
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Header image by Allen Pleus (WDFW)
September 29, 2016
The joint effort by WSG Crab Team, Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW), and Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (PBNERR) to assess the abundance and distribution of invasive European green crabs in Padilla Bay wrapped up yesterday (read about day 1 and day 2). We checked and removed all 186 traps from 31 sites.
One green crab was captured on the second day of trapping, a 58 mm male, at ...
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29
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September 27, 2016
Another stunningly beautiful day to explore Padilla Bay (read about day 1). Day two of our rapid response trapping effort is complete; our teams checked all 192 traps at 31 sites, released native critters and refreshed the bait for an additional day of trapping.
Unfortunately, two additional invasive European green crabs were captured by our traps over the last 24 hours – both young of the year females. One was found about three quarters of a mile north of ...
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September 26, 2016
Emily here to report that Crab Team is on the road again, spending three days in Padilla Bay where the second confirmed capture of European green crab in Washington’s Salish Sea took place only a week ago. The capture occurred less than a week after we returned from San Juan Island, relieved not to have found any additional invasive crabs. Thankfully, we hadn’t yet finished re-stowing the gear.
Similar to our trip to San Juan Island, we are conducting extensive trapping in an effort ...
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September 23, 2016
Hot on the heels of the recent capture of the first confirmed European green crab along Washington’s inland shorelines by Crab Team volunteers, a second individual live invasive crab was caught in Padilla Bay, near Mt. Vernon, earlier this week.
The individual crab is a 34 mm female, and the small size suggests she is a young of the year, possibly arriving as a larva last winter. The crab was found by staff of the Padilla Bay National ...
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September 14, 2016
Emily here again, this time from back in Seattle. Our boots are washed, the gear is stowed, and we are all ready for some well-earned rest. But first, a quick update to fill you in on the rest of our rapid response sampling effort on San Juan Island (read about Day 1).
Day 2: After setting traps on Monday morning, we headed out even earlier on Tuesday morning to check the traps, refresh the bait and move some traps ...
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September 12, 2016
Emily here, writing from beautiful Friday Harbor Labs after our first full field day on San Juan Island as part of our rapid response effort. Following the Westcott Bay Crab Team volunteer capture of an adult male green crab, our plan of action was to devote a few days to intensively trapping the marsh where the crab was caught, as well as several sites in the surrounding area to get a better idea of how many more green crabs ...
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September 8, 2016
One strength of the Crab Team protocol is that it enables us to confidently compare findings among different sites, and track changes over time – even if different people are doing the sampling. With sampling on this scale, even the small steps can be important to what we learn from the data. The Protocol in Focus allows us to expand on these details, and offer an opportunity to see all the behind-the-scenes planning that goes into methodology.
One of the most challenging parts of creating a sampling program ...
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