Environmental Threats

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.

Drayton Harbor, Blaine

Following the discovery of several molted green ...

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 ...

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, ...

August 13, 2019

Growers working with Taylor Shellfish captured a female European green crab while working in oyster beds last week. This crab is the fourth that has been found in Samish Bay this year, the first three detections occurring in early January. At about 75mm (~3″) across the back shell, this crab was relatively large for a female, but had a thin, pliable shell, indicating she had recently molted. Growers noticed the crab while processing an oyster pallet, removed ...

May 30, 2019

The remains of a European green crab were found in Squalicum Harbor in Bellingham earlier this week, the first evidence of the global invader confirmed in Whatcom County. Casey Pruett, director of the Marine Life Center, noticed a gull feeding on the carcass at the boat ramp immediately adjacent to the center, recognized it as a European green crab, and reported to Angela Foster, the on duty WDFW agent at the harbor. Most of the ...

  January 23, 2019

Three European green crab have been found in Samish Bay, north of Mt. Vernon, a new detection location for the globally-damaging invasive on Washington’s inland shorelines.

The three adult crabs, including an egg-bearing (gravid) female and two males, were captured by shellfish growers working for Taylor Shellfish Farms on three successive nights in early January. The growers recognized the crabs as invasive while handling oysters and sorting out other animals, and quickly reported them to Washington Department of ...

November 1, 2018

The turning of the leaves signals a winding-down of green crab trapping activities. Just as it feels right to us to hunker down and stay warm, cooler water temperatures also cause green crab to become less catchable in the fall and winter. Crab Team monitors have pulled and stored their last traps, and, as of today, all of the data are into Crab Team HQ here in Seattle. While we have provided snapshots and updates ...

September 25, 2018

WSG Crab Team volunteers at Kala Point, near Port Townsend, captured a single European green crab during their final early detection sampling effort for the 2018 season on September 8. In follow up trapping efforts in the area, staff from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) captured an additional green crab at Scow Bay, a marshy area between Indian and Marrowstone Islands. The two captures add to the list of sites at which green crab have been ...