December 16, 2020
As we hang up our hip boots to dry until next season (right next to the holiday lights, of course), it’s a good time to stop and reflect on what we were able to accomplish in a fleeting field season that was truly unlike any before it. In addition to our continued early detection monitoring in the Salish Sea, we had ambitious goals to design and launch a broad geographic ...
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November 23, 2020
Trapping for European green crab has mostly concluded for the 2020 season, enabling us to take stock of all that was accomplished this year and provide some status updates on green crab. The obstacles this year were considerable, but volunteers and managers were more than equal to the task, masking, attesting, and distancing, not to mention riding out wildfire smoke, to trap for green crabs. The next few posts will provide updates on what was accomplished and what ...
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October 12, 2020
Hello WSG Crab Team enthusiasts! Now that the whirlwind of the trapping season is winding down, I’m excited to finally introduce myself to you all as the Crab Team Coastal Specialist. I began this role in late July, and while July might feel like years ago, this is still a relatively new position to WSG. In the few months since I began, I’ve been splitting my time between the “office” (which continues to be my kitchen) and the ...
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August 30, 2020
In 2016, when invasive European green crabs were first found on San Juan Island, media coverage left a lot of folks on Washington’s coast scratching their heads. Why the sudden concern? After all, green crabs were first detected in Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor several decades ago, starting in 1998, and had mostly disappeared. Shellfish growers might see them on occasion, but they were no longer considered the looming threat perceived at the turn ...
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July 3, 2020
Removal of European green crab in Drayton Harbor is now underway, thanks to the collaborative efforts of WSG, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), the Northwest Straits Commission (NWSC) and other stakeholders. This is the second of two posts on efforts to date. Part 1 covered the development of the management team.
Removal trapping of European green crabs at Drayton Harbor officially began on May 26. Since then, staff with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) ...
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July 2, 2020
Removal of European green crab in Drayton Harbor is now underway, thanks to the collaborative efforts of WSG, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), the Northwest Straits Commission (NWSC) and many other partners and stakeholders. This is the first of two posts on efforts to date.
Starting last fall, following the detection of green crabs in Drayton Harbor, in Blaine, first as molts, then in two assessment trapping efforts, WSG and WDFW began developing a collaborative ...
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May 8, 2020
Like so many other projects and programs right now, partners contributing to state-wide efforts to manage European green crabs are trying to figure out what can safely be done, in the midst of the global pandemic, to address the urgent threat of invasion. In particular, there has been concern that green crabs won’t wait until COVID-related isolation measures are lifted to continue their population growth and spread, and that we could miss a critical ...
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April 22, 2020
The SeaDoc Society announced Washington Sea Grant Crab Team as the 2020 winner of the Salish Sea Science Prize. The SeaDoc Society, a program of the UC Davis Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center, awards the Salish Sea Science Prize every two years in recognition of scientists whose work results in the improved health of fish and wildlife populations in the Salish Sea.
The Sea Doc Society recognized the Crab Team for their use of science to improve the health of the Salish ...
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April 9, 2020
Dear Crab Team enthusiasts, I’m excited to introduce myself as the new Crab Team coordinator. During these unusual times, I know that many of us are striving to fill our days with meaning and more time outdoors. Once it is safe to do so, I look forward to doing both in the name of Crab Team. In this position, I will support program volunteers and partners through site visits, training coordination, data submission processing and science ...
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March 31, 2020
March and April are typically the busiest months on the Crab Team annual calendar, as staff and volunteers reunite for training workshops to relaunch the monitoring season. This spring, however, the Crab Team office has been almost entirely empty over the past month. The leadership of Washington Sea Grant, in collaboration with the UW College of the Environment, is following all advice and directives set forth for safety and health by the University of Washington around the COVID-19 ...
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In addition to creating a scientifically robust sampling scheme, and one that is sensitive to finding green crab when they are rare, Crab Team also put a great deal of thought and guidance into the protocol with the goal of being good stewards of Washington’s shorelines. Even though our goal is to detect green crab as they first arrive and help avoid ecological damage, it is certainly true that the act of sampling itself can be a disturbance to a site. ...
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October 22, 2019
Broadening the search for invasive European green crab in Drayton Harbor, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and WSG Crab Team captured additional European green crab in recent weeks. In addition, Lummi Natural Resources has reported capturing green crab in Lummi Bay as a result of early detection trapping, expanding the list of new sites where green crab have been confirmed in Whatcom County this year.
Following the discovery of several molted green ...
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(Photo: A male, 38.5mm European green crab, one of the 17 captured at Drayton Harbor last month.)
October 8, 2019
Blaine, WA — As part of an early-detection partnership, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and the Washington Sea Grant (WSG) Crab Team found evidence of European green crabs (Carcinus maenas) in Drayton Harbor during regular monitoring, and then trapped 17 green crabs during a two-day rapid response in ...
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September 6th, 2019
Last week, Crab Team Program Manager, Emily Grason, and Program Assistant, Kelly Martin, conducted a trapping assessment on San Juan Island with Chelsey Buffington and Roy Clark from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). After three days and more than 330 trap sets, one male European green crab (64 mm) was found in Westcott Bay.
Westcott Bay, on the northern end of San Juan Island, is the location of the very first ...
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August 22, 2019
Crab Team volunteers in Drayton Harbor, just south of the border with Canada, found the shell of an invasive European green crab while walking the beach this past Saturday. The detection is the furthest northward along Washington shorelines the invasive species has been confirmed.
Margaret Santamaria and Margarette Grant are part of the Crab Team crew at a monitoring site on California Creek. They made the discovery while they were conducting a survey nearby for another citizen science project, ...
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