{"id":728688,"date":"2026-06-27T06:24:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T06:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/728688\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T06:24:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T06:24:24","slug":"invasive-crab-species-continues-to-cause-problems-along-maines-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/728688\/","title":{"rendered":"Invasive crab species continues to cause problems along Maine&#8217;s coast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PORTLAND (WGME) &#8212; An invasive species of crab is wreaking havoc on some of the native plants and natural habitat along Maine\u2019s coastline.<\/p>\n<p>Green crabs were first spotted in the early 1800s after coming over from Europe.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Green crabs continue to make an impact on Maine's natural habitat and native plants. (P. McAleenan)\" class=\"ImageEmbed_image__qZBo_\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/b52983f1-0b23-48f5-840c-fc1cde9c9b6d-P.McAleenan.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Green crabs continue to make an impact on Maine&#8217;s natural habitat and native plants. (P. McAleenan)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the things that makes green crabs a really successful invasive species is that they have a wide range of thermal tolerances. So they can tolerate warmer waters and to some degree, colder water as well,\u201d Manomet Conservation Sciences Project Manager Jessie Batchelder said.<\/p>\n<p>With the Gulf of Maine warming at a rapid pace, this is allowing them to survive through the winter months.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Green crabs continue to make an impact on Maine's natural habitat and native plants. (P. McAleenan)\" class=\"ImageEmbed_image__qZBo_\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/5da4166a-8465-4746-aa68-cf4d3cb68568-Greencrabs_PMcAleenan.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Green crabs continue to make an impact on Maine&#8217;s natural habitat and native plants. (P. McAleenan)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey prefer areas that are a little more protected. So if you are at an exposed beach with big crashing waves, you might not find as many. But if you are at the beach and there is seaweed cover or rocks, if you flip over some of the rocks or some of the seaweed, you\u2019ll likely find some green crabs,\u201d Batchelder said.<\/p>\n<p>These protected areas include some of our bays, estuaries and marsh systems.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHere in Maine, soft shell clams are something they really enjoy. Soft shell clams are a really important commercial fishery in the state for us. We\u2019ve seen declining soft shell landings and a lot of that we think is attributed to green crab predation,\u201d Batchelder said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Green crabs continue to make an impact on Maine's natural habitat and native plants. (Manomet Conservation Sciences)\" class=\"ImageEmbed_image__qZBo_\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2ea076d1-e039-4c1a-a509-8ef69f794cf2-ManometConservationSciences.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Green crabs continue to make an impact on Maine&#8217;s natural habitat and native plants. (Manomet Conservation Sciences)<\/p>\n<p>A single adult green crab can consume up to 50 clams, mussels, oysters and other shellfish each day.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Green crabs continue to make an impact on Maine's natural habitat and native plants. (P. McAleenan)\" class=\"ImageEmbed_image__qZBo_\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/d56eb69f-5bef-418e-a6e4-ce0e4f249594-Greencrab_PMcAleenan.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Green crabs continue to make an impact on Maine&#8217;s natural habitat and native plants. (P. McAleenan)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe easiest way to identify it is by looking at the spine on either side of their eyes. There will be five pointy spines on each side, the left and right of the eye,\u201d Batchelder said.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s important to not just look at their color, as some have more of a red or brown coloring, the five spines is the best way to identify them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTLAND (WGME) &#8212; An invasive species of crab is wreaking havoc on some of the native plants and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-728688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}