Saving Seafood

ALASKA: Invasive European green crabs are expanding their territory in Southeast Alaska

June 19, 2024 — Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Friday that shells of the invasive European green crab were spotted along the shores of Bostwick Inlet on Gravina Island near Ketchikan.

European green crabs have the potential to wreak havoc on commercial and subsistence fisheries in Alaska — the crabs are highly competitive and very hungry. They eat clams, oysters, scallops, other crabs and are known to rip up seagrass in their search for food. Fish and Game said that as a result, they can displace local crab populations like the Dungeness crabs in Bostwick Inlet. They can also decimate eelgrass and saltmarsh habitats, disrupt ecosystem balance, and cheapen overall intertidal biodiversity.

According to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, they have even been reported in British Columbia eating juvenile salmon. The International Union for Conservation and Nature ranks them as one of the top 100 worst invasive species in the world.

Read the full article at KTOO

WASHINGTON: Invasive European green crabs could devastate local seafood industry

February 5, 2024 — As Washington’s coastal Dungeness crab commercial season opens this week — a mean, green menace continues to threaten to create a “crab crisis” in the Pacific Northwest.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says European green crabs are continuing to cause issues, despite efforts by the federal government.

KIRO Newsradio’s Kate Stone was invited by a local seafood company to get a firsthand look at the efforts to quell the invasion of European green crabs in Washington waters.

Read the full article at KIRO 7

Non-Profit Gets Award to Investigate a Commercial Green Crab industry in New England

September 17, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Manomet, a non-profit organization headquartered in Plymouth, Massachusetts, has been awarded $267,440 by the NOAA Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program to “expand work to develop a lucrative green crab fishery in New England.”

“Utilizing an invasive species to diversify fisheries resources may ultimately enhance the future resiliency of New England’s coastal communities, and could serve as a unique example of how to mitigate and adapt to the ecological and socioeconomic impacts of climate-drive change,” Manomet Senior Fisheries Scientist Marissa McMahon said in a statement. “We are honored to have been chosen by the Saltonstall-Kennedy program.”

European green crabs were introduced to the U.S. in the early 1800s. The invasive species has been thriving with the warming of the water in the Gulf of Mexico. McMahon is hopeful that Manomet will be able to replicate Italy’s lucrative soft-shell green crab fishery with the funding from NOAA.

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.