Today’s National Invasive Species Awareness Week post is brought to you by WSG Crab Team whose work centers around monitoring and detecting the aggressive European green crab (Carcinus maenas). In 2016, volunteer monitors on San Juan Island were the first to spot the arrival of one of the globe’s “worst invasive species” to Washington’s Salish Sea.
European green crab are small shore crabs with the ability to alter ecosystems in a huge way. Blamed for the collapse of Maine’s soft-shell clam industry, green crab are a threat to shellfish fisheries, compete and potentially prey on young Dungeness crab, and are known to impact eelgrass, our prime nursery habitat in Washington waters. Washington is uniquely poised at the very beginning of this new invasion, making early detection of new populations highly valuable work.
You can help! Bust out your mud boots and join the Crab Team. Click the link to get involved: https://wsg.washington.edu/crabteam/getinvolved/