Green Crab Sightings

Additional Green Crab Captured in Samish Bay

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 ...

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Green Crab Trappers Get Skunked at Pysht

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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Additional Green Crabs Captured in Whatcom County

  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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New detection of European green crab in Bellingham

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 ...

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Green Crab Trapping Resumes in the Salish Sea

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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New Detection of European Green Crab in Samish Bay

  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 ...

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2018 European Green Crab Season Update

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 ...

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European green crab found in Port Townsend area

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 ...

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WSG Crab Team Trip to Makah Bay

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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Building Capacity to Protect the Salish Sea From European Green Crab

 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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Single Green Crab Found During Follow-Up Assessment on Whidbey Island

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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CORRECTION: First European Green Crab Confirmed in Port Angeles

February 5, 2018: CORRECTION

Since this report was made, we have determined that the evidence originally submitted of the crab’s identity was not verifiable as a direct observation of the crab. Because European green crab is currently very rare in Washington’s Salish Sea, the majority of reports are of mistaken identity. This is why photographs of the crabs captured are required before we can confirm a sighting. It is therefore with some relief that we retract this ...

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New Coastal Site for European Green Crab: Makah Bay

Header image courtesy of Zach Moore/USFWS

October 25, 2017

At the end of August, Crab Team received an email on our “tip line” from a beachwalker who had spotted a European green crab near Hobuck Beach in Makah Bay. The photograph submitted enabled us to immediately confirm the sighting, which was a new record for that area. The crab was located on Makah tribal land, and the Makah subsequently undertook a rapid assessment trapping effort to determine the extent of any green ...

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Trapping for European Green Crab on Whidbey Island

October 12, 2017

Following the recent capture of a single European green crab at Lagoon Point, on Whidbey Island (read more), Crab Team staff and volunteers, in consultation with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), headed back to the site last week to carry out assessment trapping as an expanded early detection effort. Over three days, the group conducted 114 trap sets, and captured only one additional European green crab.

This type of assessment trapping is the first step ...

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