Taking an Invasive Species from Pond to Plate as a Green Crab Harvester
There aren’t many things I’d rather do than spend a day in the water of Point Judith Pond. It’s meditative, going out to get my traps while wading through the pond’s rhythmic ripples and soft mud. For the past few summers, my job has been harvesting invasive green crabs.
European Green crabs are everywhere in the Point Judith Pond, thanks to the warm, sheltered water. They’re harmful because they rip up eelgrass while digging for soft-shell clams, destroying native habitats and shellfish populations. Small and tough, they’re mostly ignored except by curious kids. For a long time, they weren’t worth much as food and were barely used as bait. Seeing them everywhere, I thought harvesting them could be the perfect business venture: an abundant resource that everyone wants removed from the water. I just had to find a buyer.
When I was 14, I spent a summer day wading around with a net, collecting green crabs to fill a five-gallon bucket. I tried to sell them at the marina down the street but was told that despite their invasive status, I still needed a license. The $150 license, a “Non-Lobster Crustacean” commercial fishing license that covered all the native species of crabs like blue crabs and Jonah crabs, as well as green crabs, wouldn’t be available again until January. Disappointed, I started planning for the next year.
By the following summer, I was ready to make some money. With a license in hand and traps in the water, I felt like a true commercial fisherman. I called around to nearby bait shops to see what they would pay and quickly realized what I’d gotten myself into: They bought crabs by the bushel, about 350 crabs at a time. I started with just two traps, and with roughly 30 crabs per trap every two days, it took time to fill orders.
It’s a simple system—and it feels good to fight an invasive species by putting it to good use.
The work itself is simple but time-consuming. I usually work at low tide when I can walk right out to the traps. Every few days, I visit the marina to collect fish carcasses left behind from fish processing: tuna, mahi mahi, striped bass, black sea bass, fluke, scup and more. I go out four or five days a week and have my traps in the water from early June through early September, when school starts.
My first summer, all that work added up to much less profit than I’d hoped. Part of the problem was that I sold the crabs exclusively as bait, not realizing there was interest in them as marketable seafood.
I still wanted to maintain my business. It was fun, interesting and it helped the pond—but how could I make it economically viable? After buying four more traps, I began researching alternative markets. I reached out to Kate Masury of Eating with the Ecosystem to see if any restaurants were interested. Within a week, she had lined up several chefs willing to give green crabs a try.
Working with chefs was the best thing that happened for my business. Chefs are willing to pay more, and they help shape consumer awareness. Chefs like green crabs for a few reasons: They have a rich seafood flavor, serving them benefits the ecosystem and they’re inexpensive compared to other crab species.
After pulling crabs from my traps, I pack them, put them on ice and deliver them the same day. It’s a simple system—and it feels good to fight an invasive species by putting it to good use. My family and I make green crab stock for fried rice, and it works beautifully in seafood paella. If harvesting isn’t your thing, Dune Brothers sells green crabs or you can try them at restaurants like Hangry Kitchen in Pawtucket, run by Chef Stacy Deetz—where she turns the invasive species into genuinely delicious dishes.
Once I had my foot in the door, I wanted to make green crab harvesting more accessible. There was more demand than I could possibly meet, and the only real solution was to bring in more harvesters. If enough people got involved, we could turn an environmental problem into valued local food.
The biggest obstacle was the license. At $150, it was too expensive for many kids and seasonal harvesters. It’s hard to justify the cost when you might lose money, especially after buying traps and equipment and putting in hours of work. The existing license was too broad and too expensive for someone who just wanted to harvest green crabs on the side.
To incentivize green crab harvesting, the license needed to be affordable—just like the one available in Maine. I contacted the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management to explain what I’d learned and what I wanted to change. They told me that creating a new commercial fishing license would require a bill to be passed by the General Assembly.
A few months later I found myself testifying before the Rhode Island Senate Committee on Environment and Agriculture. I had reached out to Senator Susan Sosnowski and Representative Kathleen Fogarty, both of South Kingstown, with my idea, and they helped draft a new bill. After early feedback from some other harvesters and a surprisingly negative article in The Providence Journal, I spoke with fishers and local residents about what they wanted from a green crab license. The message was clear: It shouldn’t interfere with recreational harvesting or hurt existing oyster, Jonah crab or other green crab harvesters by making them get another license.
After Sosnowski and Fogarty took the feedback and made revisions, bills SB 938 and HB 6157 passed with simple, shared language and were signed into law on June 24, 2025. As of January 1, 2026, Rhode Island residents can purchase a green crab commercial fishing license for $10.
The solution is simple: There are so many invasive green crabs in Rhode Island’s waters that overfishing is neither likely nor harmful. Not only does this new license make it easier to commercially harvest green crabs, it helps to promote sustainable seafood. By continuing to develop a market for the species, the goal is that fishers who rely on harvesting green crabs as part of their income will see an increase in demand.
If you’re interested in joining the effort, you can get licensed to sell green crabs or harvest them recreationally to try at home. I love what I do because it feels good to do it: removing an invasive species from an ecosystem I care deeply about to provide a sustainable food source is incredibly satisfying work. The best solutions are often the simple ones, and I hope my efforts will have positive ramifications for Rhode Island’s waters for many years to come.
For more information, visit PointJudithGreenCrabs.com.
Liam Cromie is an 18-year-old green crab harvester out of Point Judith, Rhode Island. He grew up playing in the water with his siblings, embarking on kayak adventures and going clamming. He enjoys going fishing and trying all sorts of different seafood.
