Green Crab Management – Washington Sea Grant

2022 Season Wrap Up – WA Coast

June 15, 2023

As we dive into the 2023 European green crab trapping season, it’s important to reflect on the insights gained from the coastal green crab populations in 2022. This summary of green crab observations from Washington’s coastal estuaries complements our Inland 2022 wrap-up, rounding out our focus on the trends and patterns observed from green crab trapping results across the state. We pulled from several different data sources to piece together an ...

15
JUN

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Green Crab Monitoring

2022 European Green Crab Wrap Up: Inland sites

December 31 2022

We spend a lot of time thinking about how to quantify green crab efforts and numbers to understand status and trends. Suffice to say that any way you slice it, any way you define and quantify metrics, 2022 was a big year in Washington for European green crab management. With the launch of the Governor’s Emergency Order and WDFW-coordinated response measures, this year brought ...

31
DEC

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Green Crab Monitoring

In the Nick of time? An early detection and rapid assessment in Hood Canal

June 8, 2022

The amazing volunteers who make up Washington Sea Grant’s Crab Team have done it again, detecting a basketful of green crabs before they became a truckload. Part of what makes this event particularly significant is that it’s in Hood Canal, a basin of the Salish Sea where green crabs had not previously been detected.

From Detection to Response

During their regular monthly monitoring in May, the team at Nick’s Lagoon near Seabeck caught ...

8
JUN

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Green Crab Monitoring

What Does the Invasion at Lummi Mean for the Salish Sea?

December 6, 2021

The recent report by the Lummi Nation of more than 70,000 European green crabs captured this year has many wondering what this could mean for efforts to prevent green crabs from establishing in the Salish Sea. This number certainly indicates that the population of green crabs within the sea pond on the Lummi Reservation has grown exponentially since their first detection in 2019 (Mueller and Jefferson, ...

6
DEC

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Green Crab Monitoring

Completing the First Year of a Collaborative Removal Effort at Drayton Harbor

December 23, 2020

One of the big successes this year was the launch of a local removal effort in Drayton Harbor. In spite of COVID, in spite of wildfire smoke, in spite of everything that 2020 had to throw at us, the collaborative management team was able to make great strides in trapping the Washington’s northernmost green crab hotspot. From May through October of this year, the crew was out trapping, trapping, and … trapping, with two ...

23
DEC

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Green Crab Monitoring

2020 Coastal Green Crab Update

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 ...

16
DEC

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Green Crab Monitoring

2020 Salish Sea Green Crab Update

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 ...

23
NOV

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Green Crab Monitoring

WSG and WDFW Expand Green Crab Trapping on the Washington Coast

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 ...

31
AUG

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Green Crab Monitoring

Launching Collaborative Green Crab Management in Drayton Harbor (part 2)

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) ...

3
JUL

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Green Crab Monitoring

Launching Collaborative Green Crab Management in Drayton Harbor (part 1)

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 ...

2
JUL

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Green Crab Monitoring