Volunteers Sought for Tribal Crab Study
The instrument is quite simple to use – attach a mesh bag filled with mesh kitchen scrubbers to a small buoy and place the contraption in Puget Sound. Although simple in construction, this technique for capturing baby crab has been utilized successfully worldwide for a long time.
Fortunately for tribal biologists, once post-larval crabs are ready to settle, they will grab a hold of the first thing that provides enough texture for them to hold onto. By placing the scrubbers along the nearshore, the goal is to capture a subsample of the crab as they wash towards the shore to settle. Thus, with a little luck, when the buoy is pulled 24 hours later, there will be dozens of young Dungeness crabs larvae attached.