Green crab was found in the Maritimes in the late 1980s. In terms of the abundance of this green crab, first of all, when it was found, it took about a year for DFO to make a plan or to take action on it. Quite frankly, that is a crucial window of time and another perfect example of the problems that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has. The rapid response that could have been taken here to protect this species would have been a very good management protocol.
That said, green crab in itself isn't necessarily just green crab. If you've seen them up close, probably the closest thing you can recognize them to is a rock crab. There are very fine distinctions that you'd be able to see between a rock crab and a green crab, specifically at the front of them, because they come in many different colours.
Over the last number of years, the commercial fishery has tried to address this and tried to take some out. As I'm sure you're aware, Bay St. George is another key area in which they're found, outside of Placentia Bay. There are key areas or key pockets in which they're found, especially in the northern part, in regard to Placentia Bay.
I believe a number of different measures could be taken to address it. However, unless the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is willing to allocate more funds, is willing to try to look into new technology and new surveys and look into new ways to physically take those crabs out of the environment and then assess whether they need to block off key areas and map out what they're going to do, it's going to take some time. It's definitely going to take considerable time, but in the long term, they've been here for quite some time and as much as I'd like to see them removed and gone, it would have to be in collaboration not only with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but with the commercial side of stuff, and even getting the locals involved in this, too.
In terms of what money you can allocate towards that, outside of volunteers going out and trying to take them out themselves, citizen science is pretty good. If you go to areas between Memorial University and the marine institute here in the province, for people who scuba dive, who even do it recreationally, that would be a great start.