Learn about tracking Dungeness crab across the Salish Sea

Comox Valley Nature members are invited to CVN’s online-only January general meeting. The keynote presentation will be as follows:

Title: Community science for crabs: Tracking larval Dungeness crab across the Salish Sea
Speaker: Heather Earle (Hakai Institute)
Date: Sunday, January 26, 2025
Time: 3:00 p.m. PT
Location: Instructions for joining this Zoom meeting will be sent to members before the meeting.

Following the keynote presentation, the meeting will include brief reports from CVN interest groups and other activity leaders.

The keynote presentation will be recorded and later made available on CVN’s website.

Dungeness crab in False Creek.
Photo by Fernando Lessa https://sentinels.hakai.org/approaches/light-traps

Driven by communities and led by the Hakai Institute, the Sentinels of Change Light Trap Network is a community science project that uses light traps to investigate the ecology and dynamics of a critically important species: Dungeness crab. Taking advantage of the crabs’ attraction to light (positive phototaxis) these floating traps allow the network to track the arrival and abundance of the larval crab, alongside many other interesting marine organisms.

Three years in, the network has grown to 30 sites operated by diverse community groups across the Salish Sea, including several sites within K’omoks Nation territory and in the Comox Valley. Join us to hear about what they are seeing and about how important community science is in our efforts to understand ecosystems and environmental change.

For more information, visit https://sentinels.hakai.org/.

About the speaker

Heather Earle is a marine ecologist with the Hakai Institute and project lead of the Sentinels Light Trap Network. She says she is fortunate to work across the coast with many different communities and organizations to study marine ecosystems and how they are responding to anthropogenic induced changes. She has a master’s degree from the Coastal Marine Ecology and Conservation Lab at SFU.

About CVN

If you are new to Comox Valley Nature, find out more about us here.

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