With all the hot weather recently, our 12 Crab Team volunteers have been happy to wade around in the refreshing water of Howe Sound, monitoring for invasive European Green Crabs.
They’ve also caught record numbers of Dungeness Crabs lately! Over the past month, the Furry Creek team caught 7 juvenile Dungeness Crabs and the Mamquam Blind Channel team caught 9 Dungeness Crabs at their site. It’s great to be seeing native crabs all over Howe Sound, and into the brackish waters of the Squamish Estuary.
Since we’ve been catching more crabs, our volunteers are testing out their crab identification and handling skills.
So how do you safely pick one up? Due to the size of the opening on our traps (approx 10cm), we typically don’t catch crabs that are large enough to do a lot of damage if they were to pinch you. But it’s always a good idea to pick up a crab from behind; with your thumb on the top shell, and one or two fingers on the bottom shell.
Here’s what we’ve caught (and released) from March to the end of July:
- 26 crangon
- 29 sea gooseberries
- 309 moon jelly fish
- 21 juvenile Dungeness crabs
- 48 native shore crabs
- 21 shiner perch
- 1 saddleback gunnel
- 3 stickleback
- 60 sculpins
We’ve found no European Green Crab in Howe Sound (so far!)
To-date, there have been no detections of European Green Crab in Howe Sound, but they have been found as close as Salt Spring Island, San Juan Island (in the US), Boundary Bay (just south of Vancouver), along the Sunshine Coast, and all over the West Coast of Vancouver Island.
We launched our monitoring program last year because early detection and rapid response (EDRR) are extremely important in fighting the threat of invasive species, and a European Green Crab infestation could significantly threaten the unique marine wildlife in Howe Sound and the Squamish River Estuary.
You can learn more about Crab Team here.
Despite submitting many grant requests and funding applications, we are finding it difficult to secure long-term funding for this program. If you would like to help protect Howe Sound from European Green Crab, and support our efforts with a donation (any amount is appreciated!), please head over to https://ssisc.ca/donate.
Have we ‘pinched’ your interest? Here’s some useful links:
- Learn more about Crab Team and our monitoring efforts
- European Green Crab species profile page from Fisheries and Oceans Canada
- European Green Crab species profile page from Sea to Sky Invasives Species Council
- Impacts of European green crab in British Columbia webinar via ISCBC
- The Squamish Community Foundation’s blog post about SSISC’s EGC program
Add Comment