EDITORIAL: The green crab war has just begun

May 26—If you've ever wondered what it would be like to wage battle versus an army of aggressive little alien invaders, Pacific County's Warren Cowell is the guy to ask.

Cowell, who owns Willapa Bay Shellfish, is engaged in a personal campaign against European green crab, a voracious and fast-reproducing crustacean rated by many as the third-worst bad guy among all our planet's plentiful invasive species.

He isn't alone. So far, 11 companies belonging to the Willapa Grays Harbor Oyster Growers Association are using stopgap funding from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to help determine the extent of the crab invasion. The Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe, Washington Sea Grant and the Pacific County Noxious Weed Control Board's Ed Darcher have all joined as allies in a struggle with enormous stakes for the bay's ecology and economy.

In April several companies began placing traps on some of their most useful lands in Willapa and caught an impressive — and scary — 1,600 green crab. Cowell, who started his crusade in February, is closing in on 11,000 at last count. As documented on the Facebook page Willapa Green Crab Disaster, many of these crab were gravid females — meaning they were pregnant with thousands of crab larvae that won't be released into local waters. Trapped crab are humanely frozen and disposed of.

David Beugli, the association's executive director, speaking at the annual Pacific County Marine Resources Committee Science Conference on Saturday, described green crab numbers since February as "pretty much staggering." There has been enough trapping to show they are present throughout the bay — and even in the Naselle River estuary. Though concentrations vary a lot, there's no doubt we have a major infestation.

The science conference expanded on some information the Chinook Observer has already reported, such as:

—Green crab have no practical commercial value, with even mature adults being too small to produce a usable quantity of meat to pick. And under current regulations, as an invasive species it is illegal to possess or transport them, except for the monitoring and interdiction efforts now underway.

—They are a particular threat to commercial clam species raised in the bay and also consume eel grass, an important foundation of bay ecology. An ongoing study will use DNA analysis to determine exactly what all they are eating and in what proportions. Elsewhere in the world, they have decimated some fisheries.

—The Washington Legislature made a significant appropriation to fight green crab, funds that will become available July 1 at the start of the new fiscal year. Private citizens can best assist in this important fight by encouraging lawmakers to pay close attention and continue providing all needed resources. The bay is too complex and dangerous a setting for volunteer trapping to be feasible, even if the law allowed.

—There doesn't appear to be much intermingling between green crab and our valuable native Dungeness crab. Nor is there much discussion about green crab interfering with oysters or razor clams.

—It will be vital for all major Willapa Bay landowners, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to join forces in this fight.

It's too soon to tell where this will end up. Although it's disappointing that we took our eye off the ball after green crab were initially discovered here in 1998, the most intense infestation of Willapa Bay is still close to the start. It's conceivable that intensive trapping like that being done by Cowell could keep tamping the problem down until some better answer is found. So far, there has been little progress elsewhere in identifying other effective controls.

For his part, Cowell maintains a glimmer of optimism, assuming we regard this as the crisis it is. When his traps hit the 10,000 crab mark on May 18, he gave this update:

"A milestone I didn't think we'd hit when we started. I'm glad to have made this much of an impact, but am feeling a little overwhelmed by the fact that we caught 373 EGC today. This is a long rough road ahead of us, and it appears we're just getting started. We need more effort by more people, and the sooner the better. All the crab that my crew has harvested could be replaced by a small number of females that we didn't get. I believe this is like a forest fire, in that we need to throw enough resources at this to control it, or all this effort today will mean little or nothing."