April 15, 2020 — Commercial fisherman Clint Funderburg should be on the ocean right now, catching Dungeness crab on his fishing boat, the Widgeon. Instead, he’s in his shop in Newport, and his boat is parked at the dock — likely until June.
When crab prices tanked a few weeks ago, he shifted gears to his off-season side gig. So, he’s building a refrigeration system for one of the many fishing boats that are stuck at the dock right now.
The coronavirus pandemic dealt its first blow to the West Coast fishing fleet back in January, cutting off lucrative live crab sales to China for the Chinese New Year.
From there, things only got worse as the virus spread across the globe and restaurants everywhere closed their dining rooms. This time of year, Funderburg would normally be getting $7 or $8 a pound for Dungeness crab. When it got down to just $2 a pound last month, he gave up.
“The company was starting to lose money,” he said. “We just quit fishing, called it a season. There are very few people left fishing. You know, you basically can’t hardly get rid of the crab. Normally, we would crab through May, and a lot of the guys do. Especially the smaller boats count on March, April, May to really make their seasons.”