Frankly, after the report in Nov. 2021 that 70,000 green crabs were discovered in a tribal sea pond, IMO efforts at monitoring and eradication before the green crab established a beach-head have failed in inland Washington waters. Green crabs are listed as one of the top 100 invasive species world-wide. In this summary, you can read that they are tolerant of a wide-range of environmental conditions. Green crabs are potentially long-lived, up to seven years. Green crab females can produce up to 370,000 pelagic larvae per year, and these young are dispersed via ocean currents over long distances during their 90 day larval period.
If you cannot eradicate an introduced species before it becomes established, your only options are 1) live with the consequences or 2) try to control its numbers where it is especially abundant. Option 2 requires continuous effort
To be fair to WDFW, they are dealing with the general public who have demonstrated repeatedly that they cannot identify squat correctly. "But officer, I thought that this was a blank...". There are Cancer and other crab species that look similar enough to Carcinus meanus to cause confusion. Officer, "What are you doing with all those small crabs in your bucket?" General public, "We are doing our part by collecting all these nasty, introduced green crabs." Officer, "But those are juvenile Dungeness crabs." General public, "No, really???"
I suspect that WDFW is using this reporting mechanism to identify concentrations of crabs to target for control.
Steve
If you cannot eradicate an introduced species before it becomes established, your only options are 1) live with the consequences or 2) try to control its numbers where it is especially abundant. Option 2 requires continuous effort
To be fair to WDFW, they are dealing with the general public who have demonstrated repeatedly that they cannot identify squat correctly. "But officer, I thought that this was a blank...". There are Cancer and other crab species that look similar enough to Carcinus meanus to cause confusion. Officer, "What are you doing with all those small crabs in your bucket?" General public, "We are doing our part by collecting all these nasty, introduced green crabs." Officer, "But those are juvenile Dungeness crabs." General public, "No, really???"
I suspect that WDFW is using this reporting mechanism to identify concentrations of crabs to target for control.
Steve