Green Crab Trap In Eel Grass Bed

Well, that’s a wrap on our Invasive European Green Crab trapping in St. Mary’s Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador! This year we set a total of 334 traps at 10 trapping locations and removed 4,358 green crab!

We have been trapping Green Crab in St. Mary’s Bay for 3 years now and this year we removed the most amount of green crab yet. In 2022 we set 135 traps at 3 locations and removed 2,438 green crab. In 2023 we set 384 traps at 8 locations and removed 3,200 green crab. Meaning across three years we have removed 9,996 green crab from St. Mary’s Bay.

This year we added two new trapping sites, O’Donnells and North Harbour. At O’Donnell’s, we saw beautiful eelgrass beds that were unfortunately inhabited by green crab. At North Harbour, a low catch of green crab was recorded and a plentiful population of the Native Rock Crab was observed through bycatch counts. Don’t worry though, all rock crab bycatch was returned to the ocean in good condition.

This project was made possible through the Aquatic Invasive Species Fund by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.