Green crab: Redefining the catch

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Eighteen-year-old Tegan Gale, wearing a Larsen’s Fish Market long-sleeve, stood at the wheel of his 15-foot Boston Whaler on a recent summer day and took a left out of Menemesha Basin from Dutcher Dock to the pond, on the hunt for an invasive pest.

As a young boy, Gale retold how he used to haul these unwanted crabs in Vineyard waterways and hand them over to other commercial fishermen like his dad and the “Tashmoo guys,” who used the crabs for bait.

“I had this little dinghy that we found in Tashmoo, and my dad helped me fix it up, and I had probably 15 or so pots,” Gale said about the rowboat called the Nor’easter. “I was so into it because I was little, and I thought I was a commercial fisherman.” 

The young Islander takes after his father, second-generation lobster fisherman Jason Gale; he had already run his father’s old lobster boat, the Watch Out, at 15 years old, and now holds all his own permits and operates his own business as he makes a go at keeping a family tradition alive. His licenses allow him to harvest from a slew of fisheries, including lobsters, scup, striped bass, and mackerel.

But this summer, Gale’s decided to try a new fishery, one that neither his father nor seemingly any other Island fisherman takes part in, at least not to harvest for the culinary market — the invasive green crab. 

About a month and a half ago, Gale applied for a letter of authorization issued by the state, an adherence to a state law passed in 1958, to help eradicate the pervasive species, which he now brings to market.

His childhood venture has come full circle where, a year since graduating from Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, he’s incorporated the green crab into his catch, not as bait, but to eat. And there’s hope that others on the Island and Massachusetts could join in and help create a viable culinary market.

The invasive species that stowed away in the holds of cargo ships from Europe and Africa back in the 1800s are often seen as a trash species, good enough only for bait for other fisheries, such as conch, lobster, and tautog, which is how Gale was initially introduced to green crab when he was younger. 

On the Island and along the East Coast, green crabs destroy shellfish and marine habitats, such as eelgrass, that provide refuge for prey and maintain species diversity, and contribute to marsh degradation, and the crabs are resilient. Shellfish constables are forced to repeatedly harvest green crab as part of predator control methods.

Danielle Ewart, shellfish constable for Tisbury, harvests green crabs through dozens of pots in Lagoon Pond and Lake Tashmoo about once a week. She composts them, donates them as bait to fishermen, and even gave some away to turn into biochar. 

“They’re here to stay,” said Ewart, who’s caught so many green crabs she’s filled up whole trash barrels. 

Mary Parks, executive director and founder of the nonprofit greencrab.org, agrees that the invasives are more than just a nuisance — they’re a real problem. Green crabs can eat up to 40 half-inch clams a day. And they are prolific. They produce 185,000 eggs per year, and they’ve adapted over the past 200 years to maintain a broad and wide palate. Research also suggests they’ll do well in the face of climate change.

Chilmark Shellfish Constable Isaiah Scheffer also sets around 100 traps in Nashaquitsa and Mememsha Pond, and catches roughly a tote a week, which can be anywhere from 400 to 500 crabs. In peak summer, though, they’ll often fill four totes, and so take in 2,000 crabs a week. Scheffer donates his hauls to conch fishermen.

Green crabs are one of the reasons that the Island doesn’t have the shellfish seasons that it used to have historically, Scheffer said.

Local efforts to get rid of the pest have been ongoing for years, and haven’t yet eradicated the problem. There’s been a push in the past couple of years to encourage the consumption of the invasive species as a flavorful and sustainable alternative. Greencrab.org is at the forefront of the effort, and works on harvester and chef education initiatives as well as collaboration between harvesters and wholesalers. Part of their effort is Green Crab Week, which took place from June 20 to June 29. 

On the Island, Shelley Edmundson, executive director of M.V. Fishermen’s Preservation Trust (MVPFT), asked Gale if he’d test the viability of a green crab market. It was a perfect match, she said, because of Gale’s stint as a novice green crab fisherman.

But Gale said he wouldn’t continue to just catch green crab to sell as bait. It’s actually worth the money when he can sell them in a culinary market. And so, for about the past month, Gale heads out to the pond once a week on his Whaler, the No Schoolie, which he bought five years prior. (Gale changed the boat’s name from Schoolie, a colloquial term to describe young fish that swim in a school, for authenticity. “It was the start of COVID, and I would not go to online school and go fishing,” he said.)

“They’re never going to stop them if people don’t eat them,” Gale said.

Gale’s one of hundreds of commercial fishermen in Massachusetts who’ve expressed interest in green crab so far. In 2024, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) issued 295 letters of authorization, which is up from 127 in 2020, Story Reed, assistant director at DMF, said. These letters may not suggest how many fishermen want to sell to a culinary market, but, Reed said, last year seafood dealers reported 151,126 pounds of green crab sales.

So far on the Island, it hasn’t caught on. Reed estimated they’ve issued two to four letters annually to Island fishermen, who have to renew their letter of authorization each year.

Is there an appetite for green crab? The Fishermen’s Trust helped facilitate the permit endorsement for Gale, and is wholesaling his green crabs to restaurants and chefs through their facility in Menemsha, Edmundson said. 

“They are edible, and with the right recipe, delicious,” Edmundson said.

Part of the mission of the MVFPT is a seafood market called the Martha’s Vineyard Seafood Collaborative, which sells fresh and frozen local seafood at the West Tisbury Farmers Market and through its Community Supported Fishery program. 

It’s only been a few weeks, but Gale said there’s been some repeat interest in his haul of the invasive species.

Galen Sampson, innkeeper and chef at Lambert’s Cove Inn, was Gale’s first customer, and he took 40 pounds. Sampson now uses Gale’s haul to make a lobster and blue crab ravioli in a saffron green crab broth for the Woods Restaurant at the inn. So far, he said, it’s received good reviews.

Sampson said that the variability of the green crab is terrific, and makes for a rich and flavorful broth. If Gale learns how to produce soft-shell green crab, which is more labor-intensive, Sampson said, he’d buy hundreds. But he’s open to continue experimenting. In other countries, he said, chefs steam and roast them, then grind the entire crab to make a paste that can be used as stuffing, which is a technique he’d like to try. 

“This is an opportunity to use something that does taste good, and it helps this young person starting out to develop a market for it,” Sampson said.

Sampson and his wife Bridget were initially introduced to the green crab when they watched “One Bad Crab,” a documentary by Sandy Cannon-Brown that premiered on the Island in March. Sampson said he offered to help, and expressed interest in green crab for his restaurant, but there wasn’t a culinary market on-Island yet. He even reached out to fishermen on the Cape, but they couldn’t distribute here.

“We’re happy he’s doing it. It’s really cool,” Sampson said of Gale. “We’re behind him trying to create a market for it.”

The new market is still limited on the Island, but state officials are excited that the Island fisherman is trying to make a go at it. “It’s great that [Gale’s] doing that,” Reed with DMF said. “I mean, the only way this thing is going to take hold is if people do it and give it a shot.”

Compared with other fisheries, the barrier to entry for green crab is lower. Fishermen only need a skiff, and can harvest near shore, in less than 30 feet of water. The problem, Parks from greencrab.org said, is that supply outweighs demand right now. “The reality now is that a green crab harvester who’s selling for culinary markets is oftentimes selling other seafood,” she said. 

“It all comes down to the consumer,” said John Thurgood, a private chef on the Island who loves to use green crab in his dishes. “The fishermen will catch whatever they can.” Thurgood said he’s tried to get people to eat green crab for a decade, but often consumers prefer a big chunk of meat, more common in other crabs, and a lot of chefs aren’t always educated on how to use the species in food.

The fisheries in demand are sustainable, but Gale and Thurgood said there’s a lot of other fisheries available around the Island, but there’s rarely demand for them.

But they are both optimistic that as people learn about the real nuisance and problems that green crabs cause, and with new dishes, public perception could change. 

“There’s no negative impact on catching [green crab],” Thurgood said.