Dungeness crab Archives - Page 23 of 25

Entangled: Making The Sea Safer For Whales

November 1, 2017 — More than 30 times this year, the federal government has received reports of whales tangled in fishing gear along the West Coast. Sometimes the whales manage to wriggle free. Other times you see heart-rending pictures on the news or a rescue mission.

The culprit often involves Dungeness crab pot lines. Now Oregon crabbers are working with marine scientists to make the seas safer for whales and to avoid a black mark on their brand.

Bob Eder has fished commercially out of Newport, Oregon for decades.

“Over 45 years of pulling crab pots—I think I’ve probably hauled in close to a million—I’ve never encountered an entangled whale,” he said.

‘We want to be proactive’

Eder often sees whales at sea and recognizes just one bad outcome blamed on fishing gear could be all it takes to cause a PR nightmare. Whale numbers are up, but so are sightings of humpback whales, gray whales and the odd blue whale entangled in fishing lines and buoys—especially in California.

“We want to get out ahead of it. We want to be proactive,” Eder said. “We don’t want to be sued by the Center for Biological Diversity. We want to see what we can do to mitigate the situation.”

The Center for Biological Diversity is an environmental group and it did just sue the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The group wants a federal judge to order the state regulator to make crab fishermen do more to avoid harm to endangered whales.

Crab traps themselves are not the problem, but rather the heavy-duty ropes stretching from the seafloor to one or more buoys at the surface. Whales can snag a fin or a tail and get all tangled up if there’s too much slack in the vertical line or excess floating on the surface.

“They normally don’t come in where our gear is,” Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission Executive Director Hugh Link said. “But when we get warmer water and the feed comes in closer to shore, then we have an issue.”

Link and Eder are two members of a work group of crabbers, marine biologists and government agency and nonprofit representatives. They’ve been meeting in Oregon since March.

A grant from NOAA Fisheries launched what is known as the Oregon Whale Entanglement Work Group, which is facilitated and now supported by Oregon Sea Grant. Washington state crabbers and other interested parties plan to meet in Montesano on November 8 to hear an update on whale entanglements and discuss whether the Washington-based/the local fleet should launch a proactive work group too.

The work group agreed to distribute a flyer to crab boat operators ahead of the season opener next month with best practices for setting and tending gear. Oregon and Washington also have programs to retrieve lost or derelict fishing gear. The work group next plans to survey the fleet about potential season modifications and area closures to keep whales away from gauntlets of ropes.

Read the full story at KUOW

California crabbers use GPS to find whale-killing gear

September 14, 2017 — HALF MOON BAY, Calif. — Fisherman Jake Bunch leans over the side of the fishing boat “Sadie K,” spears his catch, and reels it aboard: an abandoned crab pot, dangling one limp lasagna noodle of kelp and dozens of feet of rope, just the kind of fishing gear that has been snaring an increasing number of whales off U.S. coasts.

Confirmed counts of humpbacks, blue and other endangered or threatened species of whale entangled by the ropes, buoys and anchors of fishing gear hit a record 50 on the East Coast last year, and tied the record on the West Coast at 48, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The accidental entanglements can gouge whales’ flesh and mouth, weaken the animals, drown them, or kill them painfully, over months.

This year, Bunch is one of a small number of commercial fishermen out of Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, and five other ports up and down California who headed to sea again after the West Coast’s Dungeness crab season ended this summer.

The California fishermen are part of a new effort using their cellphones’ GPS and new software pinpointing areas where lost or abandoned crabbing gear has been spotted. They retrieve the gear for a payment — at Half Moon Bay, it’s $65 per pot —before the fishing ropes can snag a whale.

Especially stormy weather this year has meant more wayward crabbing gear than usual, Bunch said recently on a gray late-summer morning at sea.

“Makes it all the more important to pick it up,” he says.

Read the full story at the News & Observer

An Alarming Number of California Whales Are Getting Caught In Fishing Lines

California has seen a record-breaking number of whale entanglements over the last three years. Now, the Center for Biological Diversity is suing the state for failing to protect its endangered species.

August 30, 2017 — Justin Viezbicke once saw a whale struggling to swim up the coast of California without a tail. Though it was a disturbing sight, Viezbicke wasn’t exactly shocked; he’d encountered similar circumstances before. Viezbicke, the California stranding network coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, surmised that this particular whale’s flukes had been severed off by fishing gear. He knew the animal wouldn’t make it far.

In the past, Viezbicke has come across whales that lost blood-flow to their tails due to rope lines tangled tightly around their bodies. Less severe entanglements than the one Viezbicke witnessed can still lead to deadly infections or otherwise interfere with the animal’s ability to feed or forage.

“These entanglements are long, drawn-out processes,” Viezbicke says. “They can last months, sometimes even longer depending on the nature of the entanglement, and the will of the animal.”

The number of whales entangled in fishing lines off the West Coast of the United States has been sharply rising in recent years. In 2016, 71 whales became entangled in fishing gear off the West Coast, breaking the entanglement record for the third consecutive year. “We’re lucky if we get some or all of the gear off of a half dozen to a dozen of the whales every year,” Viezbicke says.

Entanglements are not always fatal, but for some threatened species, even a small number of deaths could be enough to collapse an entire population. (One subpopulation of humpback whales that feeds off the coast of California, for example, now numbers a mere 400.) Twenty-one endangered or threatened whales and one leatherback sea turtle were entangled in Dungeness crab gear in the Pacific Ocean in 2016; typically, Dungeness crab traps consist of a pot used to collect crabs on the seafloor, attached to a line of rope that extends to a buoy on the ocean surface.

Read the full story at Pacific Standard

Sen. Cantwell Secures Major Win for Washington Crab Fishermen

Legislation makes cooperative management of Dungeness fisheries permanent

August 4, 2017 — WASHINGTON — The following was released by the office of Senator Maria Cantwell:

A bill led by U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) strengthening Washington’s crab fishery has passed the United States Senate and will now head to the president’s desk for signature into law. The bill permanently extends a decades-long fishery management agreement that has been vital to Washington state’s Dungeness crab fishery.

Without Cantwell’s legislation, crab fisheries in the Pacific Northwest faced an uncertain future without an approved fishery management plan.

“The Dungeness crab fishery is an economic pillar of our coastal communities, supporting thousands of fishing and processing jobs,” Cantwell said. “By preserving the Tri-State Agreement, we can sustainably manage our crab fisheries for many years.”

The states of Washington, Oregon, and California cooperatively manage the West Coast crab fishery in federal waters under a tri-state agreement that Congress first authorized in 1998. The act would make that authority permanent. The agreement expired without a replacement in 2016. The Cantwell bill will help reintroduce much-needed stability to the industry, and preserve a sustainable, science-based fishery management program that keeps fishermen fishing and crab stocks thriving.

“The future of West Coast Commercial Fishing is anchored by Dungeness crab, which has added stability and vitality to coastal fish-dependent communities in the face of other struggling fisheries. The crab fleet was happy to work with Senator Maria Cantwell and Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler on this legislation making the Tri-State Agreement permanent,” said Dale Beasley, president of the Columbia River Crab Fisherman’s Association.

Crab populations vary greatly by year, depending on food availability and ocean conditions. The Dungeness crab catch tends to peak every 10 years and can fluctuate by tens of millions of pounds between years. In order to manage the fishery appropriately, managers must coordinate between states to ensure management and conservation goals are achieved.

Washington state’s Dungeness crab industry brings $61 million into the state’s economy annually. Crab fishermen in the state harvest an average of 9.5 million pounds of crab per year, supporting more than 60,000 maritime jobs.

“Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission applauds the success of Senator Cantwell and Rep. Hererra-Beutler in preserving this valuable conservation and management program. Our West Coast states have a long history of successfully managing the West Coast’s most valuable fishery,”said Randy Fisher, Executive Director of the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Diane Feinstein (D-CA) are cosponsors of the bill. Representatives Jamie Herrera-Beutler (R-WA-3) and Derek Kilmer (D-WA-6) co-sponsored companion legislation in the House.

CALIFORNIA: Squaring off over selling directly from boats at Fisherman’s Wharf

June 5, 2017 — Should local seafood be permitted to be sold straight from the boat in San Francisco?

That’s what some local fishermen are arguing, though their efforts are meeting resistance from some of the city’s oldest seafood families, who say the new proposal would hurt their established businesses and present a public health risk.

The would-be seafood mongers say that selling their wares from their boats would put the “fisherman” back into Fisherman’s Wharf, and could provide locals and tourists with a new shopping option.

“People in San Francisco do want whole fish,” said San Francisco fisher Sarah Bates. “This is a new market that the fishermen are uniquely situated to serve — especially when the fishing is slow or the weather is bad, and you have product and you have a couple days at the boat. This is value added directly to the fisherman.”

Fishing-boat operators and seafood wholesalers presented their points of view at a public meeting held by the Port of San Francisco on Friday. The 90-minute meeting got contentious at times, with some of the city’s seafood processors arguing that the proposal would put their businesses at a disadvantage. On the other side, individual fishers said that there’s no comparison between the wholesale seafood business and independent fishing entrepreneurs making a few hundred dollars when they have extra fish to sell.

Though most of the state’s harbors allow direct retail sales from the boat, it hasn’t been permitted in San Francisco since a brief trial period in 2000. The proposal the Port is considering — and will decide on this summer — is to allow fishers who have berth assignments at certain parts of the wharf to sell whole halibut, salmon, tuna, rockfish and bycatch from their boats. No Dungeness crab would be allowed.

Read the full story at the San Fransisco Chronicle

Commercial fisheries disaster opens door to federal relief for Washington communities

January 24, 2017 — Commercial fishing communities along the central coast of Washington and some areas of Puget Sound are eligible for federal disaster funding because of poor fishing in 2015 and 2016. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzer named nine fisheries groups or areas in an announcement Wednesday, including Westport and Willapa Bay non-treaty commercial coho fisheries.

Congress still needs to appropriate the funds for the relief program.

Each of the nine fisheries “experienced sudden and unexpected large decreases in fish stock biomass due to unusual ocean and climate conditions,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a news release. “This decision enables fishing communities to seek disaster relief assistance from Congress.”

Along with Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay coho, other Washington commercial fisheries benefiting from the declaration include:

– Quinault Indian Nation Grays Harbor and Queets River coho salmon fishery (2015)

– Ocean salmon troll fishery (2016)

– Fraser River Makah Tribe and Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe sockeye salmon fisheries (2014)

– Nisqually Indian Tribe, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe, and Squaxin Island Tribe South Puget Sound salmon fisheries (2015)

– Quileute Tribe Dungeness crab fishery (2015-2016)

Read the full story at the Spokesman-Review

Disaster Declared for West Coast Fisheries

January 23, 2017 — SEATTLE — Nine West Coast salmon and crab fisheries have been declared a disaster, allowing fishing communities to seek relief from the federal government.

Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker declared the disaster on Jan. 18.

Nine salmon and crab fisheries in Alaska, California and Washington suffered “sudden and unexpected large decreases in fish stock biomass or loss of access due to unusual ocean and climate conditions,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

The fisheries include Gulf of Alaska pink salmon, California Dungeness and rock crab, and several tribal salmon fisheries in Washington.

Read the full story at Courthouse News

CALIFORNIA: Toxic algae delays Dungeness crab season

January 19, 2017 — As expected, the opening of the commercial fishing season for California’s treasured Dungeness crab will be later than usual.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife on Friday evening announced that, because of a toxic algal bloom that could be related to warm temperatures brought by El Niño, the start of the commercial season will be later than the traditional Nov. 15 date.

This follows the delay in the recreational fishery announced by the California Fish and Game Commission on Thursday, and a Wednesday afternoon announcement that the California Department of Public Health had recommended that people not eat any California-caught Dungeness or rock crab until further notice.

“Crab is an important part of California’s culture and economy, and I did not make this decision lightly,” said fish and wildlife agency director Charlton H. Bonham in a statement. “But doing everything we can to limit the risk to public health has to take precedence.”

According to a public health agency spokesman, the agency will continue collecting samples up and down the California coast on a weekly basis. “Once the levels of [the toxic algae] decline in the coastal waters, we usually start seeing the levels of domoic acid in bivalve shellfish (i.e., mussels and clams) and small finfish (i.e., anchovies and sardines) start to decline. Crustaceans such as Dungeness and rock crab are usually the last animals to flush the domoic acid out of their systems.”

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times

Acidic ocean could soon cost us lots of crabs

January 18, 2017 — Dungeness crab fisheries on the West Coast—valued at about $220 million annually—may face a strong downturn over the next 50 years.

The acidification of the ocean expected as seawater absorbs increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will reverberate through the West Coast’s marine food web in unexpected ways, say researchers.

Dungeness crabs, for example, will likely suffer as their food sources decline. But pteropods and copepods, tiny marine organisms with shells that are vulnerable to acidification, will likely experience only a slight overall decline because they are prolific enough to offset much of the impact, finds the study published in Global Change Biology.

Marine mammals and seabirds are less likely to be affected by ocean acidification, the study found.

“What stands out is that some groups you’d expect to do poorly don’t necessarily do so badly—that’s probably the most important takeaway here,” says Kristin Marshall, lead author of the study who pursued the research as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington and NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center. “This is a testament in part to the system’s resilience to these projected impacts. That’s sort of the silver lining of what we found.”

Read the full story at Futurity

Warming Oceans Could Make These Seafood Favorites Toxic

January 12, 2017 — In recent years, scientists have warned that climate change could have a disastrous effect on the ocean’s ecosystems as the world’s waters get warmer. But now, a new study suggests that widespread die offs of ocean-going species isn’t the only thing that warmer waters could cause: It might also make some seafood favorites too toxic to eat.

Chances are, most people haven’t heard of domoic acid, but it’s something that could be making more headlines soon enough. That’s because it’s a neurotoxin that can build up in sea creatures that are popular on the dinner table, like Dungeness crab, mussels, clams and anchovies, Clare Leschin-Hoar reports for NPR. And, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, warmer waters lead to algae blooms that can cause elevated levels of this toxin in many of the ocean’s critters.

“When water’s unusually warm off our coast, it’s because the circulation and patterns in the atmosphere has changed, bringing warm water from elsewhere—and this is happening at the same time that we also see high domoic acid in shellfish. It has a very strong mechanistic connection,” Morgaine McKibben, study author and Oregon State University doctoral student tells Kavya Balaraman for Scientific American.

Domoic acid is produced by some kinds of algae, in particular one called pseudo-nitzschia. These microorganisms are the basis of the underwater food chain and thrive in warm waters, but can build up in sea life, causing serious health issues for humans and animals alike. As Leschin-Hoar explains, domoic acid first became known as a health threat in 1987, when an outbreak in Canada killed three people and sickened more than 100 with symptoms including vomiting, diarrhea and cramps. In serious cases, domoic acid poisoning can even cause seizures, numbing and memory loss.

Since then, officials have monitored domoic acid levels along the western North American coastline—and it’s been steadily rising over time. McKibben’s study looked at more than two decades worth of data gathered in the region and found a strong correlation between rising water temperatures and rising domoic acid levels, Stephanie Bucklin reports for LiveScience.

These elevated levels of domoic acid are already starting to affect the seafood business. In 2015, officials shut down Dungeness crab fisheries from Alaska to California for several months because of high domoic acid content, Balaraman reports, and similar shutdowns were enacted in 2016. This left the seafood industry in Washington state $9 million in the hole. To make matters worse, the toxin can linger in fisheries for as long as a year.

Read the full story at Smithsonian