Mount Vernon — The shell of an invasive European green crab was found Thursday along the Fidalgo Bay shoreline.
This is the third year Fidalgo Bay has been monitored for green crabs, but the first time evidence of one has been found.
Washington Sea Grant and the state Department of Natural Resources began monitoring for the invasive crab species in April. This year, they are surveying 11 beach sites in Skagit County and several others throughout northwest Washington.
The invasive species was first found in Washington’s inland marine waters in August 2016. That year, a handful of the crabs were found in Padilla Bay.
This year, a live green crab and a green crab shell have been found at new locations — Fidalgo Bay and Lagoon Point on south Whidbey Island, according to Washington Sea Grant’s Crab Team.
“The fact that we are seeing green crab at new sites is certainly concerning,” Crab Team Program Coordinator Emily Grason wrote on the Washington Sea Grant Crab Team website.
She said continued monitoring will be key to understanding the extent of the species’ reach in the region, as well as planning how to fight it.
Grason said the shell found this week could have washed into Fidalgo Bay from elsewhere, but it’s too soon to say for sure.
Cassidy Johnson, a Puget Sound Conservation Corps volunteer with Natural Resources, found the shell during a monitoring effort the state runs separate from the Crab Team, Grason said.
Green crabs continue to be found at Westcott Bay and Dungeness Spit, where they were discovered in large numbers last summer.
