Greetings From: Lone Tree Lagoon

The Crab Team monitoring site at Lone Tree lagoon is steeped in history as a part of the land stewarded since time immemorial by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. It is an important cultural site for the Swinomish Tribal Community as a place where shellfish and fish are harvested, as well as the location of a yearly clam bake and community gathering. The site is watched over by the iconic Douglass fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), called čəbidac in the Lushootseed language, that sits on the raised bit of land surrounding the lagoon. In terms of critters who visit Crab Team traps, the site is dominated by hairy shore crab with a fairly diverse group of other crabs and fish that show up intermittently. This site has achived the cancrid trifecta on more than one occasion – catching all three native large cancrid crabs in the same sample: Dungeness, graceful and red rock crabs. Impressively, the full team at Lone Tree Lagoon has been with the program since the site’s beginning, bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience of the site to share with creatures and other humans alike!