On Sunday, March 9, Tisbury Waterways, Inc., will host the premiere of an innovative film about the invasive European Green Crab that is causing mayhem throughout the coastal waters of New England. The screening of One Bad Crab, at 4 p.m. at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center in Vineyard Haven, will be followed by a panel discussion and a reception with wine, appetizers and desserts.
One Bad Crab is a 38-minute independent documentary by filmmaker Sandy Cannon-Brown that was inspired by an article of the same name by Nelson Sigelman in Martha’s Vineyard Magazine. Sigelman is the narrator of the film.
“I moved full-time to the Island in 2020 from St. Michaels, MD on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. I knew all about the blue crab after producing and directing a film, Beautiful Swimmers Revisited, based on William Warner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Beautiful Swimmers. But I had never seen or heard of a green crab. Nelson’s article intrigued me, and I wanted to learn more,” Cannon-Brown said.
Cannon-Brown traveled throughout New England to find out how individuals, communities and organizations are dealing with the invasion of trillions (yes, trillions!) of the destructive green crabs. Shellfish constables on Martha’s Vineyard are using various methods to protect juvenile quahogs and bay scallops. They’re also trapping as many green crabs as possible to minimize the numbers of these fecund invaders. The green crabs they trap are either destroyed (relocated to the landfill) or used as free bait, mostly for tautogs.
Mary Parks of GreenCrab.org is taking a different approach. She’s promoting ways to monetize green crabs to provide income for harvesters who sell them for bait or to restaurants for food. The chefs who use green crabs, mostly for stock and sauces, include David Standridge, executive chef of the Shipwright’s Daughter in Mystic, CT. Standridge was named best chef in the Northeast in the 2024 James Beard awards and his restaurant was included in the New York Times’ list of the 50 best restaurants in America.
In Maine, green crabs are primarily responsible for the decline of soft-shell clams (steamers). Landings of soft-shell clams were at an all-time low in 2024. Dr. Brian Beal, of the Downeast Institute, leads the research into understanding the interaction between soft-shell clams and green crabs and other predators. Beal says using green crabs for food or bait or fertilizer has some merit, but those efforts will not make a dent in the populations of green crabs.
Cannon-Brown also visited the Wells Estuarine Research Reserve in Maine where researchers are studying what the increase in blue crabs in New England, due to climate change, might mean to the green crabs. Blue crabs are the alpha species, but they, too, are predators on the juvenile shellfish. The presence of blue crabs might not reduce predation.
The film also includes Green Crab Week on Nantucket, where the community comes together to learn about green crabs, including how to make fertilizer out of them. Emma Green-Beach, Executive Director of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, will moderate a panel and lead a discussion following the premiere of One Bad Crab, March 9 at the Film Center in Vineyard Haven.
The panel includes Rob Morrison: Edgartown’s Shellfish Constable, Mary Parks: Founder and Executive Director of GreenCrab.org, and Paul Bagnall: former Edgartown Shellfish Constable.