Green crabs are not giving Washington a break: Today So Far

The news is a bit crabby lately...green crabby.

This post originally appeared in KUOW's Today So Far newsletter for December 5, 2022.

Those pesky green crabs continue to push farther into Puget Sound. So far this year, trappers have caught nearly a quarter million European green crabs in Washington's waters. That's more than twice the amount taken in last year. This crab is very destructive to local habitats that our native crabs, and other species, rely on. In fact, Washington has declared a green crab emergency.

And they keep expanding. Green crabs were found in Alaska for the first time this year. So far, the main response has been to capture them and send them to a landfill. We could technically eat the green crabs, but they're not the most economic catches. Dungeness crabs have a lot more meat on them. The green crabs take a lot more work. Read more here.

NPR had another interesting story recently from the East Coast. Whole Foods is stopping its purchases of Maine lobster. This means no Maine lobster will be found at any of its stores, nationwide, including in Washington state.

The decision comes after warnings from sustainability groups that state the fishing practices for lobster could harm the North Atlantic right whale. This runs afoul of certain sustainability standards the grocery chain has. Read more here.

AS SEEN ON KUOW

It has been a year since the great Sumas flood hit Whatcom County and British Columbia. The flood was extra destructive because it sent a section of the Nooksack River north into Canada, over dry land that is now occupied by homes, farms, churches, and businesses. (Elaine Thompson / Associated Press)

DID YOU KNOW?

After publishing last week's factoid about comedian Jo Koy's Tacoma roots, fellow online content editor Stephen Howie said to me, "You wrote 'McChord Airforce Base,' but isn't it 'Joint Base Lewis-McChord?'"

He's right. It is called Joint Base Lewis-McChord, today. Back in the 1980s, when Jo Koy was living in the area, it would have been called McChord Airforce Base, and was located adjacent to Fort Lewis. The airfield at that location was established in 1930 as Tacoma Field. The federal government took over the site in 1938 and renamed it McChord Field, after Colonel William Caldwell McChord, a pilot who died in a crash a year earlier. When the Air Force was created in 1947, it officially became an Air Force base.

But in 2005, a military commission was sifting through the nation's military bases and determining which ones should be closed or modified. It recommended that Lewis and McChord be combined into one giant joint base. That move was made in 2010. And that is why, today, we know it as Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

ALSO ON OUR MINDS

Study: Alzheimer's drug shows modest success slowing declines in memory, thinking

An experimental drug that removes a substance called amyloid from the brain appears to slow down Alzheimer's disease.

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