Invasion

Invasion Description

1st Record: a mile south of Magnolia, Essex County/MA/Massachusetts Bay (Prybot, 8/21/09, 37 m depth, 1 specimen)

''West Coast Crab Shows Up in Massachusetts. For the second time in three years, a Gloucester fisherman has caught and landed an adult male Dungeness crab (Cancer magister) off Cape Ann, MA. The 1.95-pound crab was trapped on sandy bottom, 120 feet down, about a mile south of Magnolia on August 21. Earlier, on July 19, 2006, another Gloucester gillnet hauled up a Dungeness crab snagged in a net set 270 feet down in East Gloucester, about two miles southeast of Thatcher's Island. This crab also weighed around 2 pounds. The most likely entrance pathway is transport as larvae in ship ballast water brought from the West Coast.' (Excerpted from Ebb & Flow, Gloucester Daily Times, August 29, by Peter K. Prybot)

Geographic Extent

A mile south of Magnolia, Essex County/MA/Massachusetts Bay (Prybot, 8/21/09, 37 m depth, 1 specimen)