Green Crabs infest west coast beaches

CRS Science Director Crysta Stubbs said prawn and minnow traps are proving effective in capturing the invasive species.

“A site like Cypre River Estuary for example, we were catching up to 10,000 crabs a day just in 40 traps and so that’s gone down quite substantially to sometimes 1000 crabs a day which is awesome,” she said.

Stubbs said European Green Crabs feast on clams and bivalves as well as young dungeness crabs, and clip off eel grass in tidal areas, reducing juvenile salmon habitat.

She said the crabs are currently turned into compost, but other commercial possibilities are being studied.

“Where green crabs are native there’s a soft shell industry and things like that so there is a market for them and I know on the East Coast of the United States there are chefs working with them,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next few years we do at least see some sort of test case coming out with DFO and I know with pressure from our Indigenous partners wanting to see this turned to food or fertilizer that we’re moving in that direction but understandably it’s just going to take a lot of processing and careful consideration on how to roll out the process like that.”

She said the entire west coast of the island is in the management stage as they try to prevent the spread to the east coast of the island.

by David Wiwchar

Green Crabs infest west coast beaches

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