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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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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(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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July 17, 2019
Drenched and muddy, but greatly relieved, we packed all 150 traps out of the Pysht estuary this morning. Over the past three days, in partnership with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Crab Team staff participated in an expanded assessment trapping effort that resulted in roughly 300 trap sets, and, most importantly, zero detections of European green crabs.
The Pysht river estuary is a huge and beautiful marsh, with miles of muddy channels, ...
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July 8, 2019
Last week was a busy one for European green crab monitoring on Washington’s inland shorelines. Two expanded trapping efforts were taking place simultaneously at the beginning of the week, with mixed results. The first, a trapping effort in Whatcom County conducted by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) Technician, Chelsey Buffington, turned up three European green crab in Chuckanut Bay. WDFW conducted this trapping in response to the recent discovery of a green ...
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May 13, 2019
The return of spring means trapping season for green crab is now under way. In April, WSG Crab Team resumed early detection trapping across the monitoring network along Washington’s inland shorelines. We’re pleased to share that Crab Team has received funding to continue this work for the next biennium (July 2019 – June 2021) in the Washington State budget. To date, the program was funded primarily through the Puget Sound Marine and Nearshore Grant Program (US Environmental ...
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August 8th, 2018
Last month, Washington Sea Grant Crab Team staff traveled to the Makah Reservation in the northwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula to participate in the Makah Tribe’s European green crab trapping efforts. As you might remember, in October of 2017, we reported the very first sighting of a green crab in Makah Bay. Since then, Adrianne Akmajian, Marine Ecologist for the Makah Tribe, has been leading extensive trapping efforts to better understand and manage the population ...
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July 5th, 2018
As we wrote last week, the first half of this monitoring season has seen several new detections of European green crab, but as green crab appear to be ramping up, so is the group of humans ready to control them. WSG Crab Team is now a project with five team members (including two full time staff), more than 200 volunteers, and 25 partner staff from agencies and tribes. That’s a lot of people ...
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June 29, 2018
The first half of the 2018 WSG Crab Team monitoring season is coming to a close, and with that comes a status update on European green crab in Washington’s Salish Sea. Since April, live green crab or molts have been detected at five sites, two of which are new detection sites:
June 11, 2018
Last week, WSG Crab Team spent three full days in the mud at Lagoon Point on Whidbey Island. After two European green crab were discovered there last year, one during regular volunteer monitoring and a second during the subsequent rapid assessment, Crab Team HQ decided another multi-day trapping assessment could help us better understand the status of green crab at the site. ...
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April 27, 2018
Yesterday’s blog post covered the highlights from the first green crab special session at the 2018 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference. Today, we’ll break down the second special session that focused on management of invasive European green crab and provide some reflections on the conference as a whole.
Session 2: “Addressing European Green Crab in the Salish Sea: A Rare Opportunity for International Collaboration Toward Effective Aquatic Invasive Species Control and Prevention”
During the second ...
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