December 2, 2019 — Oregon’s Dungeness crab season is coming up, but there’s a problem looming over this fishery.
The ropes and buoys that allow crabbers to collect their crab pots from the seafloor can injure and even kill whales when they swim into them.
Last year, 46 whale entanglements were reported off the West Coast, and crab gear was responsible for about a third of them.
According to Derek Orner, a bycatch reduction program coordinator with the National Marine Fisheries Service, this a growing problem in the spiny lobster and Dungeness crab fisheries.
“Were seeing increases in whale entanglements with a number of species that are listed under the National Marine Mammal Protection Act, in particular with humpback whales, gray whales, and blue whales,” he said.
His agency recently announced grants for several ropeless fishing gear projects, including a new kind of crab pot developed by Coastal Monitoring Associates of California.
Bart Chadwick, the company’s president, said when crabbers drop their pots in the ocean, the ropes and buoys can remain in the water column for days.