PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • August 16, 2025
In early June, as a summer intern for Scarborough Land Trust, I found myself traipsing through Scarborough Marsh — the largest contiguous salt marsh in the state — with a backpack full of fish. Our mission was to think like blue crabs as we scouted habitable locations to deploy traps. In recent years, spurred by the rapidly warming waters in the Gulf of Maine, there have been increased reports of blue crab sightings in Maine waters. Blue crabs are ferocious consumers that prey on juvenile lobsters, invasive green crabs and even smaller blue crabs. We have deployed six crab traps throughout the marsh. Every Wednesday, we check and rebait the traps. Blue crab monitoring projects led by Manomet and Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve will aid in gaining a better understanding of where blue crabs reside in Maine and how their populations are changing over time. ~ Emma Righter