Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association Announces Green Crab Week

August 1, 2025

NANTUCKET, MA— Join the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA), Nantucket Land and Water Council (NLC), and Sustainable Nantucket (SN) for the Sixth Annual Nantucket Green Crab Week! The MMA,  NLC, and SN will be offering fun daily events August 3 to August 9 to learn about and take action against invasive European green crabs on Nantucket. 

 

European green crabs were first introduced to North America in the 1800s, likely traveling in the ballast water of merchant ships from Europe. This invasive species is now abundant on Nantucket, threatening crucial aquatic resources, including eelgrass beds, shellfish populations, and native crab communities. Together, as a community, it is possible to help prevent green crabs from destroying the natural resources that make Nantucket’s waters so special! Please come join us during Nantucket Green Crab Week to learn more. 

 

MMA Green Crab Identification Workshop and Derby Information Session

Registration Link: https://112458a.blackbaudhosting.com/112458a/Nantucket-Green-Crab-Identification-Workshop-and-Info-Session-04Aug2025 

Monday, August 4, 3:45 PM – 4:30 PM Price: FREE 

Location: MMA Aquarium, 32 Washington Street 

Join Maria Mitchell Association Aquarium staff to learn how to identify the European green crab (Carcinus maenus), an invasive species that threatens Nantucket's native species and habitats! We will compare these species to local crab species and determine their biological sex. This is a great chance to learn about our annual Nantucket Green Crab Derby and all its events! 

 

 

MMA Nantucket Green Crab Survey: Seine Method 

Registration Link: https://112458a.blackbaudhosting.com/112458a/Nantucket-Green-Crab-Survey-Seine-Method 

Tuesday, August 5, 3:15 PM – 4:15 PM Price: FREE 

Location: Hither Creek Beach Access (Beach Access #52) 

Join Maria Mitchell Association Aquarium staff on a survey for invasive European green crabs! This survey will be a part of the MMA Nantucket Green Crab Community Science Survey that you can do yourself at any time. In this session, we will be using a seine net. 

 

Annual Green Crab Fertilizer and Bait Pickup 

Registration Link: https://112458a.blackbaudhosting.com/112458a/Annual-Green-Crab-Fertilizer-Workshop-with-the-Nantucket-Land-Council-07Aug2025 

Thursday, August 7, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM 

Price: FREE 

Location: MMA Aquarium, 32 Washington Street 

Join Maria Mitchell Association Aquarium staff to pick up green crabs for free, fun, and exciting ways to help control the population of the invasive green crab, while creating environmentally friendly fertilizer for your garden or bait for your fishing! Registrants can drop by the Maria Mitchell Association Aquarium at 32 Washington Street on Thursday, August 7, between 10am and 12pm to pick up a take-home green crab fertilizer kit or bait crabs! Kits will include green crabs and instructions on how to make your own green crab fertilizer – you will need your own white vinegar. 


Nantucket Green Crab Survey: Wading and Hand Net 

Registration Link: https://112458a.blackbaudhosting.com/112458a/Nantucket-Green-Crab-Survey-Wading--Hand-Net-08Aug2025 

Friday, August 8, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM 

Price: FREE 

Location: The Creeks/Harbor Flats, 99 Washington Street Ext 

Join Maria Mitchell Aquarium staff on a survey for invasive European green crabs! This survey will be a part of the MMA Nantucket Green Crab Citizen Science Survey that you can do yourself at any time! In this session, we will be wading and using hand nets. 

 

Annual Green Crab Derby 

Registration Link: https://112458a.blackbaudhosting.com/112458a/Annual-Green-Crab-Derby-09Aug2025 

Saturday, August 9, 12:00 AM – 4:00 PM 

Price: $10, Groups of Up To 4 Persons Can Compete 

Help the Maria Mitchell Association and the Nantucket Land Council fight the green crab invasion by participating in the annual Nantucket Green Crab Derby! Participate in a team of up to 4 to help us maintain healthy marine habitats and for a chance to win prizes! Rules and prize details are detailed in the reservation process. Green crabs can be caught between 12am – 4pm and dropped off at the Maria Mitchell Association Aquarium between 12pm – 4pm! 


 The Maria Mitchell Association is a private non-profit organization. Founded in 1902, the MMA works to preserve the legacy of Nantucket native astronomer, naturalist, librarian, and educator, Maria Mitchell. The Maria Mitchell Association operates two observatories, a natural science museum, an aquarium, and a research center, in addition to preserving the historic birthplace of Maria Mitchell. A wide variety of science and history-related programming is offered throughout the year for people of all ages. For more information on the Maria Mitchell Association’s environmental work and initiatives, please visit www.mariamitchell.org. 


 The Nantucket Land and Water Council is a 501(c)3 environmental advocacy organization – protecting and preserving open space, harbor, pond, and groundwater, and advocating for the environment at Select Board, Planning Board, and Conservation Commission meetings. The Nantucket Land and Water Council also hosts the State of the Harbor Forum and Oysterfest each year to educate residents on the state of our water resources, and what we can all do to help maintain this critical resource. For more information on the Nantucket Land and Water Council, please visit www.nantucketlandcouncil.org. 

 

Founded in 2000, Sustainable Nantucket’s mission is to preserve the community character of Nantucket while sustaining its economic and environmental vitality. Sustainable Nantucket (SN) is a grassroots, local, non-profit organization that is building a more locally-based and self-reliant food system on-island through education, advocacy, training, and partnerships which include farmers, fishermen, local food producers, schools, restaurants, and other community stakeholders. For more information on Sustainable Nantucket, please visit www.sustainable-nantucket.org. 

 

 

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For Immediate Release

August 1, 2025

Contact: Grace Kotchen

marketinginterns@mariamitchell.org

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Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

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August 19 {1857}. There are four great men whose haunts I mean to seek, and on whose footsteps I mean to stand: Newton, Shakespeare, Milton, and Johnson. To-day I told the driver to take me to St. Martin’s, where the guide-book says that Newton lived. He put me down at the Newton Hotel, but I looked in vain to its top to see anything like an observatory. I went into a wine-shop near, and asked a girl, who was pouring out a dram, in which house Newton lived. She pointed, not to the hotel, but to the house next to a church, and said, “that’s it – don’t you see a place on the top? That’s where he used to study nights.” It is a little, oblong-shaped observatory, built apparently of wood, and blackened by age . . . .” Blackened no doubt by the wood ash and soot found in the air throughout over-crowded nineteenth century London. We always think about London being very foggy in the nineteenth century but frankly a lot of it was wood and coal ash as the nineteenth century grew older, particularly as factories developed and belched all of that into the air – think Sherlock Holmes in the 1880s. But Maria Mitchell, while starting in Europe as a young woman’s chaperone, also knew that this tour of Europe was a great learning experience – the equivalent of a college education she could not have. Doors were thrown open to her around Europe – in particular at all of the observatories that dotted the continent. She was not just well-known – she was famous. JNLF

The Ice Man Cometh

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • August 10, 2026
This is a blog of the past. I often think of this “story” when it’s hot and humid out. So here it is again. The past few weeks have been very un-Nantucket as far as the heat and the extreme humidity. When I was a child and even a teenager, I remember that we always wore long pants and even sweaters in the summer evenings on island. This does not seem to be the norm any longer unfortunately. The heat also leads me to think about staying cool and what generations before us did to preserve food. Long before modern refrigeration, ice was used for preserving foods. Although the use of ice brought an end to salting and drying fish for local markets, with railroad development and western expansion in the 1850s, salt fish was still being shipped to inland domestic markets as well as abroad. As the fishing industry grew on Nantucket and elsewhere, however, so did the need for ice to keep the catch fresh for market. On Nantucket, when a hard freeze produced ice of the necessary thickness, blocks were cut from Maxcey’s and Washing Ponds and the North Head of Hummock Pond and stored in nearby icehouses. This was a fairly long and tricky process that took skill to make sure the ice was the right thickness and that one did not fall through the ice. Mainland icehouses typically used sawdust for insulation, but Nantucket ice was insulated with beach grass, seaweed, and eelgrass—sawdust not being readily available here. The iceman would drive his cart around the streets with usually a gaggle of children trailing behind – or hitching a secretive ride on the back of the cart – hoping for a piece of ice to suck on and cool off with – back when something that simple was a pure delicacy. When electricity was introduced on Nantucket in 1889, cutting pond ice was no longer necessary. Captain John “Jack” Killen built the first ice-making plant, on Straight Wharf, opening it on May 5, 1902. Several other plants, including that of the Island Service Company, followed—all operating until the Great Depression. Nantucket’s early ice-making plants were established primarily for packing fish and shellfish, which were shipped in barrels or fish boxes layered with ice. Fishermen both on and off-island would stock up on ice before going out on long trips, and it is said that island ice was of a much higher quality than that from plants off-island—perhaps because of the purity of Nantucket’s water. Some people still cut ice. My parents had an elderly friend, now gone, and his family owned – and I assume still owns – a camp of cottages from the 19 th century up in New Hampshire. In the winter, the entire family shows up to harvest ice and store it in the icehouse. The ice is then used in each of the cottages during the summer since they have no electricity or plumbing. It is an art that is almost gone but happily there are still a few who have passed down the knowledge and skill for harvesting ice. I recently took a look at his obituary and was blown away – I remember him for ice harvesting – but wow what a life! One of service and seeking justice. JNLF

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