SWOCC release – COOS BAY, OR – Southwestern Oregon Community College invites the community to hear biology student Caleb Lafrombois and agroecology student Michelle Riley present their internship research work “Invasive Five-Spine Crabs: What You Can Do to Help”. Please join us Thursday, May 23, 2024 at 6 pm. This is a free event. Coos County residents can join us in-person in the Umpqua Hall lecture room 184 on the Coos Campus, 1988 Newmark Ave., Coos Bay. Curry County residents can join us for a watch party in the Community Room on the Curry Campus, 96082 Lone Ranch Parkway, Brookings. Lafrombois and Riley have spent spring term working with Dr. Shon Schooler, Lead Scientist at the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. Invasive five-spine crabs, or European green crabs, have been wreaking havoc on the East Coast for over a century. In the past few decades, they have spread to the West Coast. Green crabs are vicious predators, linked with the decline of native populations such as native eelgrass, Olympia oyster, and clam populations, which once flourished along our coastlines. Come learn about what you can do to help slow this invasion and protect our coastal ecosystems. This is a free event and will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing via the College’s YouTube channel. To watch the livestream from anywhere go to https://www.youtube.com/@SouthwesternOR/streams. For more information, please contact Krystal Hopper Meyers, STEAM Pathways Assistant at Southwestern at 541-888-7416 or krystal.hopper@socc.edu. For more information about the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve visit https://coast.noaa.gov/nerrs/reserves/south-slough.html. For more information regarding science programs at Southwestern visit the STEM Pathways & Degrees page of our website. (https://www.socc.edu/programs-classes/stem/).
