OnEarth Interviews Steneck About Invasive Green Crabs

OnEarth spoke with Robert Steneck, a marine scientist at the University of Maine, for an article about invasive green crabs that are harming Maine’s softshell clam industry. “We’re seeing both biodiversity and ecosystem services degraded by the green crab. This is a big event, there’s no question about it,” Steneck said, adding researchers don’t know if Maine will have softshell clams in another decade. He said the most important factor in limiting the green crab is water temperature, and recent trends are not in the softshell clam’s favor. “Unless the green crab population collapses, I think the softshell-clam fishery will be gone,” he said.