O/IS-1

Description:

Our overall goal is to determine the status of Chinese Mitten Crabs in the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay and the Mid-Atlantic region. In the proposal, we seek a modest amount of funding to sustain and build efforts to track and document new reports of the crabs over the next 12 months. This is a key step to implementing a longer-term strategy to establish the current distribution of E. sinensis in the eastern US and whether it is established here. In 2008/2009, we propose to further implement coordinated field-based measures to determine the population status of the Chinese Mitten Crab in Chesapeake Bay. This builds upon our initial efforts in FY 2007 by (a) sustaining and Expanding our existing outreach and reporting network along the Atlantic states and (b) developing survey methods for juvenile crabs in freshwater tributaries.