GEORGETOWN

Over the past 100 years, exotic green crabs have steadily entrenched themselves into Maine’s waters and become permanent residents. The crustaceans have damaged multiple fisheries in the process, including the soft-shell clam industry, and caused marshlands to recede. The increased warming of Gulf of Maine waters in the past 10 years has only made the crabs more comfortable on our coastline.

There is no fishery as of yet for green crabs, but that could be changing soon. Local marine scientists are putting their heads together to try and come up with a viable marketing scheme for the crabs, and they are making some headway.

“There are a couple of different angles that we’ve thought about with this project,” said Marissa McMahon of Northeastern University’s Marine Science Center, who has been studying green crabs in Georgetown. “One is to base it off the Venetian green crab industry, where the Venetians recognize the signs on the (crabs) back when they’re about to molt.”

Venice, Italy, has a robust industry for soft-shell green crab, where they’ve been crabbing for more than 100 years. The crabs are caught in traps just after they’ve shed their shells, and can then by deep fried and served whole, similar to softshell crabs in Chesapeake Bay.

“They’ve got it all set up, with all the recipes, dealers, packaging and storage systems,” said McMahon.

McMahon and her partner, Jonathan Taggert, have done research on what it would take to bring a green crab fishery to Maine.

“We realized the crabs don’t take well to an aquaculture setting,” said McMahon. “You can’t force them to molt. You’d have to track when the crabs are molting and figure out the best place to target them with traps.”

John Holt, who owns shorefront property on Bay Point Road in Georgetown, has been working with local scientists at Manumet to study the effects of green crabs on the environment, and has two traps used to catch and study the crabs.

“Our species are slightly different (from the Venetian species) in that there are fewer shedders,” said Holt. “But that may be because of the way we are currently trapping them.”

Holt said the key to catching soft-shell green crab is determining their molting schedules, but that it’s difficult to discern because male and female schedules differ. It’s also hard to tell where to find males and females at any given time.

“There are different sex ratios in different areas,” said McMahon, pointing out that males would be the easier of the two to nail down and ultimately harvest. “Males tend to be much more predictable in their molt cycle.”

However, it will still be awhile before scientists can accurately predict the male molting cycle.

“We’re probably years away from an industry, so in the meantime we’ve looked into other options,” said McMahon.

In Ipswich, Massachusetts, scientists have begun developing green crabs into seafood stock.

“The head chef at Legal Seafoods (in Boston) made a batch of stock from green crab and really liked it,” said McMahon. “It’s slowly catching on, but we are looking for a larger group of people with a culinary background to jump onboard.”

Additionally, lobstermen in Canada have turned to green crab as bait for their traps to avoid the skyrocketing price of herring. Green crab sells for around 30-90 cents per pound, a fraction of the herring price.

“All of this activity will help us devote time to figuring out the softshell process,” said McMahon. “But we have to get more fishermen out there trapping (green crabs). We have to give them a reason to do that.”

Holt, who is a third generation landowner on the Georgetown coast, points to one of the starkest reasons he can see.

“Marshes are being effected by the crabs,” Holt said. “(Green crabs) live under the rockweed at low tide. They effect the marsh grass because they go after the nutrients in the soil, and that kills the roots. Now the marshlands are receding. Maine’s ecology is at risk.”

McMahon agrees that the problem is worsening, but is optimistic that a green crab industry will arise and help the situation in the long run.

“Due to the gulf ’s warming waters, we are starting to see some new patterns,” McMahon said. “Our plan is to secure a larger grant and do our work on a Gulf of Maine span, partnering with folks in Ipswich and Boston and tackle the problem on a large scale.”

bgoodridge@timesrecord.com