ORONO, Maine — December 18, 2013 — Fishermen, regulators and scientists are trying to determine if the booming population of invasive green crabs along Maine’s coast might turn out to be green in more ways than one.
The “explosion” of green crabs in Maine is the latest example of shifting territory for marine species in the Gulf of Maine, which scientists have said can be linked to recently warming ocean temperatures. The crabs have been blamed for the decimation of eelgrass beds, damage to mud banks in salt marshes and plummeting numbers of softshell clams along the shore in the past two years.
Several hundred people gathered Monday for a conference at the University of Maine — some in person and some online — to talk to each other about green crabs, to see what might be done to reduce their numbers. If a way can be found to create a market for the menace, it could do a lot to provide incentives for people to go out and catch every last green crab they can find, before the softshell clams disappear and the marsh banks collapse into the sea. But finding a way to make money by selling the crabs has been elusive.
Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, said he has seen firsthand the damage the crabs can cause to the shoreline.