2023 has been a busy year for our Crab Team!
For the third year, our volunteers amazed us with their dedication to monitoring Howe Sound for European Green Crab. What’s more, the SSISC team was involved in training other groups on the Sunshine Coast, which was a great opportunity to share our knowledge! Lastly, we are saying goodbye to one crab-tain and saying hello to another. So many updates, so little time! Let’s get right to it, ‘shell’ we?
Farewell, crab-tain Ellika!
Ellika Cairns, our Community Science program coordinator, has recently accepted a new role at the Marine Stewardship Initiative, after over 3 years with SSISC. She was an integral part of the SSISC team since joining us in May 2020. Within that time, she was the fearless crab-tain of the European Green Crab Monitoring program in Howe Sound, which we affectionately call Crab Team.
Thank you so much for your hard work, Ellika. We wish you all the best in your new role at the Marine Stewardship Initiative and hope to work with you in the future!
Ellika goes out of her way to show her appreciation for everyone involved and has really left a personal touch on the program!
Welcome aboard, Rebecca McDonald!
This month we welcomed Rebecca McDonald into the role of Invasive Animal Coordinator. Rebecca joins our team with a passion for community science programs and a love of spending time in/around the water of Howe Sound. In other words, she’s a perfect fit to lead our Crab Team!
When asked what she is most excited about in the upcoming year Rebecca explained she is ‘super excited to expand the reach of the Crab Team and look into developing other programs to protect the native ecosystems in the area!’
Welcome aboard, Rebecca! We are happy to have you join our team.
Exploring new waters
Ellika and Rebecca headed to Gibson this month to provide training for the team at the Nicholas Sonntag Marine Education Centre. This is part of SSISC’s commitment to expand European Green Crab monitoring throughout Howe Sound whilst encouraging collaboration.
Ellika and Rebecca were happy to report that the Gibson site is a great candidate for European Green Crab monitoring. During the trip, the team successfully deployed and retrieved 6 traps, avoided a major deluge, and spotted a black bear firmly in bulking season.
That’s a wrap!
Our Crab Team volunteers completed their last weekend of monitoring for invasive European Green Crab this month and everyone at SSISC would like to wish them all a MASSIVE CON-CRAB-ULATIONS!
Rain or shine, our volunteers were crab-solute troopers, fearlessly wading knee-deep in the chilly waters of the wild and wonderful Howe Sound. We are happy to announce that no invasive European Green Crab were found. Thank you all for being so crab-ulous. We hope to welcome you all back next year!
Stay in touch
Although our Crab Team volunteers have finished for the season, SSISC is as busy as ever! Keep updated on all our antics by signing up to our newsletter.
Have we ‘pinched’ your interest? Here’s some pages you might be interested in:
Some crab-ulous resources:
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