rang fiswatch about this 5mins ago.. Fishwatch wasnt to intrested in what i had to say and gave me a land line number to call witch was fisheries they were the same not that intrested and told me to contact the science dep..

I said that i have been transfered to 3 dif dep "with no one even knowing what i was taling about". and have my details so they can contact me if they wanted...

Its all strainge as they "fishwatch" put out the media release only lil over a month ago..

Yeh, maybe try ring fisheries research, they would probably be more interested than the complaince dept.

Do you or anyone on this site have a number for the research dep..

I gave them "fisheries" my mobile number so they can contact me..

If you send me your contact details, location of capture and a bit more about it - I will forward it onto someone that can put you onto the right person.

Cheers,

Adam

 you can get all sorts of sealife in our waters. a lot of them come from overseas in the balast tanks on the large ocean liners. when they dump the water it and everything in there will end up in our waterways.would be interesting what you come up with

mate - get in touch with the WA Museum, Crustacean Section and ask them.  They are the experts!  and that is true for anything - from jellies to fish to insects to mammals.

 This is very bad news to have them in the swan, A few months ago a link came up on FW about asian swimmers in the PEEL estuary and It urged people to call if spotted. They can Outbreed and compete with blue mannas. 

Yeah.. the media release said to contact fishwatch asap... i rang them and they were not intrested.. rang fisheries and same not intrested.. left my number with no reponse today..

going to give Adam my details and were i caught this beast and hope somone will listen to him..

Yep seen that release as well, very concerning.

These little shits are serious trouble, they're widespread around the UK now and have outbred (if that's a word), the native brown crab (similar in size to a mud crab), to the point where you'll only catch the brown crabs in deeper water and not from the shore.

I would imagine the impact on blue swimmers would be greater as they very similar in size and what they'll eat.

Sorry to hear about your experience Silk.

I actually work at the research division and participated in the Peel survey for this crab.

Obviously there has been a misdirected communication somewhere in the department and we didnt get your phonecall as we should have. We'll sort that out immediately.

Here is a link to the official poster (Link) describing some of the crabs obvious characteristics. It also includes a small pic of the most similar of our native species.

The most important thing is to take a photo, with your camera, phone, ipod or whatever you have if you think it matches the description.  Or by all means keep it if it looks really suss and drop in to research division at hillarys. Frozen is fine.

I hope to have the lines of communication sorted out ASAP, but you can always call Research switchboard and they will be able to put you through to the marine pests section.

Cheers for your vigilance!

-Mat-

in cockburn sound last week

Well if anyone is interested you can contact me "brad" on 0447092391.. no one seems interested at fisheries..

cheers Adam. spoke to Mat today..

As he said we all need to keep a eye out for these suckers.. as they can do some damage..

just read a fishing report from the abc they have found more of these crabs in the swan

Are there any Australian crabs that look like the asian crab?   There are a lot of crabs in the estuary I havent seen befor, they are buried in tha sand in the shallows, and , unlike the blue swimmer, will have a go at anything, including my feet.  Bit smaller than the blue swimmer, look simlar to the asian crab pictured. The one which grabed my foot got flicked out of the water, and was imedently grabed by a mob of seagulls.

Would it be posible for Fishwrecked to put up photoes of the diffrent species? Please.

 Bremmer bay estuary.

Here you go... Have a look here.

http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/Documents/biosecurity/asian_paddle_crab.pdf
 

Last summer me and the bro in law went down to mandurah a few times to get a feed of crab. On at least 2 occasions we caught a couple of crabs that looked like blueys but were closer to the greeny colour of the asian crab.

Now knowing anything about the asian paddle crabs at that time we thought they might have been dirty blue swimmers or just a different colour.

Do the blues vary a little bit in colour (ie. maybe whilst mating) or would they most definitly have been the asian crabs because like the warning says they were alot more angry than the other blueys we caught, to the point of tipping them out in the tinnie to check sizes and they would go after you in the tinnie!

Not 100% sure what type they were but the ones we caught were pretty big (bout 10-15mm over size) and I even saw one of them ontop of a female whilst walking??!!