Melissa Poe, Social Scientist
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10
APR
2017
APR
2017
0
March, 2017
In March 2017, Washington Sea Grant was formally recognized as a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for its work in preparing coastal communities for hazardous weather.
NOAA’s Weather-Ready Nation initiative seeks to improve the nation’s responsiveness and resilience to extreme weather, water and climate events. Weather-Ready Nation Ambassadors are partner agencies, organizations and businesses that share a commitment with NOAA to collaborate on outreach about extreme-weather preparedness and to serve as examples themselves by ...
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15
MAR
2017
MAR
2017
One strength of the Crab Team protocol is that it enables us to confidently compare findings among 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. 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.
Of the three Crab ...
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23
FEB
2017
FEB
2017
December, 2016
Shoreline armoring removal: synthesis and assessment of restoration effectiveness in Puget Sound
Jeffrey Cordell, Jason Toft and Emily Howe, UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences; Megan Dethier, UW Friday Harbor Laboratories
Local officials, state resource managers and conscientious property owners have shown growing enthusiasm for removing bulkheads to restore natural shorelines and shore habitats. The Puget Sound Partnership’s 2014/15 Action Agenda identifies shoreline armoring as a significant threat and restoration as a main strategic goal. But monitoring of restoration sites ...
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14
FEB
2017
FEB
2017
November 15, 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. Read part 1 and part 2
Day 4: August 17 – wrapping up
Because we were camping literally right next to the marsh we were trapping, we got to sleep in ...
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15
NOV
2016
NOV
2016
November 8, 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. Read part 1.
Day 2: August 15
Up at 5 am to catch first light at 6. Back to Oysterville to pick up the traps – no green crabs, but a ...
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8
NOV
2016
NOV
2016
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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3
NOV
2016
NOV
2016
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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21
OCT
2016
OCT
2016
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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18
OCT
2016
OCT
2016
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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10
OCT
2016
OCT
2016
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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6
OCT
2016
OCT
2016
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
SEP
2016
SEP
2016
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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27
SEP
2016
SEP
2016