mashpee investigates green crab control _ mashpee news _ capenews

12/22/2015 Mashpee Investigates Green Crab Control | Mashpee News | capenews.net

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Mashpee Investigates Green Crab ControlBy SAM HOUGHTON Dec 11, 2015

Home / Mashpee / Mashpee News

Now that the state has approved the town’s comprehensive nitrogen mitigation plan,Mashpee wastewater efforts have moved into the finer details of implementation.

Listed as key is reducing the town’s green crab population.

COURTESY TOWN OF MASHPEEAmeriCorps Cape Cod members Amber Rosa and Britta Dornfeld remove green crabs from a trap in Popponesset Bay and collect data.

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Green crabs, an invasive species to northeast waters, are a significant predator of quahogand oyster seed. As the town plans on spending hundreds of thousands of dollars onquahog and oyster seed to heal the town’s estuaries and to reduce a hefty sewer project bill,leaders of the nitrogen mitigation project are looking to traps to stop the eight-legged pests.

“It turns out that green crab control is a critical component,” Mashpee shellfish constableRichard H. York Jr. said.

Mr. York and AmeriCorps volunteers began trapping, crushing, and feeding the carcasses ofgreen crabs to wild fish in Nantucket Sound in October. Mr. York said they have placedapproximately 40 traps around family shellfishing areas so far in Great River, Hamblins Pondand Popponesset Bay near the spit.

However, he plans on approaching Town Meeting in May for additional funds for a moresubstantial green crab control effort. So far, he said, his experiment has only had a minimaleffect.

Green crabs, Mr. York said Tuesday morning during a Mashpee Waterways Commissionmeeting, are one of the “worst predators” of shellfish.

Neighboring Falmouth, with a $4,800 Barnstable County grant, started a similar project overthe summer at Green Pond, a small estuary, and reported that the results have been positive.

R. Charles Martinsen, deputy director of the Falmouth Department of Marine andEnvironmental Services, said that since mid-way through the summer, about 60 traps caughtapproximately 4,500 green crabs since the program began.

“We were catching hundreds per week,” he said. “The bottom line is, this was extremelysuccessful.”

Falmouth shellfish technician Christina Lovely, the lead on the Falmouth project, said thatgreen crabs cannot only deal a blow to shellfish seed, but to fuller-grown shellfish as well.“Green crabs are not only a predator, but an invasive, and they do a substantial amount ofdamage, even on adult populations,” she said.



Ms. Lovely noted that traps in the southern section of the pond, in the mouth of the estuaryat Nantucket Sound, ensnared several more crabs than in the northern section. She notedthat crabs enter the pond from the ocean at the southern section.

Efforts in Barnstable, Chatham and Martha’s Vineyard have recently been underway toeradicate the crab as well.

In October, Mr. York fashioned his own traps from recycled oyster trays, reducing costs to50 cents per trap. But he said that the traps still need to be monitored, set, and manned.

Last year’s cold winter might have had an effect on the crab population as well. Given agood shellfish harvest year, the green crab’s absence might have been a reason.

Mr. York says that this year has proven one of the best years for bay scallops, which he saidhad a “terrific” year. In the best year in the past for scallops, he said, fishermen harvested400 bushels of scallops. This year, he said, they could harvest close to 1,000 bushels.

Last year’s cold winter, he speculated, could have helped reduce green crab populationsand created a better habitat for the scallop.

mashpee investigates green crab control _ mashpee news _ capenews

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