Vieques Crab Sampling Study

The Office of Response and Restoration conducted an investigation to characterize concentrations of hazardous substances in land and fiddler crabs on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico.  Land crab have historically been harvested by the resident human population as a source of seafood but this activity has been prohibited on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Refuge Areas because of concerns that the crabs may pose risks to human health.   Fiddler crabs are of interest because they occupy a different habitat niche and may indicate the presence of contamination entering the food web and posing potential risk to ecological receptors on Vieques.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) conducted a human health evaluation to evaluate the human health impacts of eating land crabs from Vieques.  ATSDR concluded that eating land crabs on Vieques does not pose a human health risk.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) will use the results to help determine whether selected refuge areas can be opened to harvesting of land crab.  Portions of the data may also be used in the future by the Navy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board (EQB) as a component of a complete human health and ecological risk assessments. 

Downloads The full report is broken into seperate files to minimize the downloading time required at each step, and to allow for selection of only those portions of interest.

Final Data Report for the Vieques Island Biota Sampling Project This file contains the body of the report, along with cover pages for each appendix, the figures, and tables. (Document format: PDF, size: 1.3 M)

Tables for the Data Report for the Vieques Biota Sampling Project This file contains all the tables referred to in the body of the report. (Document format: PDF, size: 814.2 K)

Appendix A Photographs This appendix contains eight example photographs showing land crab traps, sampling sites, and land crab. (Document format: PDF, size: 1.0 M)

Appendix B Laboratory Analytical Data This appendix contains tables with all analytical results for whole-body land crab and composites of whole-body fiddler crab samples. (Document format: PDF, size: 361.2 K)

Appendix C Final Data Validation Report This appendix contains an independent validation of the laboratory results. (Document format: PDF, size: 721.5 K)

Appendix D Quality Assurance Report This appendix contains further evaluation of the laboratory data. (Document format: PDF, size: 150.8 K)

Appendix E Land Crab Statistics Results This appendix contains results of statistical tests on body burdens of trace elements and total DDT in land crab, plus graphs of the data by area. (Document format: PDF, size: 1.4 M)

Appendix F Fiddler Crab Statistics Results This appendix contains results of statistical tests on body burdens of trace elements and total DDT in fiddler crab, plus graphs of the data by area. (Document format: PDF, size: 1.8 M)

Appendix G Land Crab Exoskeleton and Tissue-only Sample Analyses This appendix contains tables with analytical results for exoskeleton and soft-tissue fractions of select land crab samples. (Document format: PDF, size: 100.5 K)

Appendix H ATSDR Public health Consultation This appendix contains the Public Health Consultation prepared by the U.S. Agency or Toxic Substances and Disease Registry using data generated by NOAA. (Document format: PDF, size: 297.6 K)

Vieques Figures This is a VERY large file.  It contains all the report figures, which includes an island-wide map of sampling areas plus detail maps of each individual sampling area, followed by four figures which provide graphical presentations of some of the data contained in the report. (Document format: PDF, size: 47.2 M)

Vieques Crab Sampling Fact Sheet (Document format: PDF, size: 363.5 K)

Executive Summary (Document format: PDF, size: 327.6 K)

Executive Summary - En Espanol (Document format: PDF, size: 335.5 K)

For more information or data related to this project:

Cleaning up Vieques, Puerto Rico Learn more about NOAA's involvement in Vieques

Vieques Watershed Database and Mapping Project Software & Data Learn more about the software used in the Vieques Watershed Project and download the tissue data associated with the crab sampling study.