Washington Sea Grant (WSG) is responding to a possible threat from an invasive crustacean, with monitoring sites across Puget Sound, including in Jefferson County. The European green crab, a small but highly efficient and adaptable predator, has colonized waters and threatened native shellfish from South Africa to Australia to the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. First found on the West Coast in San Francisco Bay in 1989, the green crab has been blamed for the collapse of the softshell clam industry in Maine, according to a press release. The European green crab has appeared in other West Coast bays, including Coos Bay in Oregon, and Willapa Bay in Washington, and in 2012, the first known colony in the inland Salish Sea was discovered near Victoria, British Columbia. (Pt Townsend Leader)