Saving Seafood

CALIFORNIA: Fishing crews head to sea as delayed Dungeness crab season opens

January 21, 2024 — Thursday was the day local crab fisherman had been waiting for after months of delays because of whale entanglement restrictions.

Jonathan Tin is a deckhand aboard the commercial fishing boat Pale Horse and he was ready to get to work to bring home the paycheck he hasn’t seen in months.

“We started rigging the gear in October. We’re really excited to see what’s in these crab pots,” Tin said.

The San Francisco native has been working as a commercial fisherman for seven years after getting hooked doing the job while attending college.

“I love everything about it. I love being out here in the ocean. I love working hard, running the gear. The harder you work the more money you’re going to make,” Tin said.

Read the full article at CBS News

CALIFORNIA: Dungeness Crab season begins January 5

January 2, 2023 — The commercial Dungeness crab season commences in Del Norte County, this week. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFWD) announced the Dungeness season is now open in zones 1 and 2, Sonoma County line to the Oregon border. The delay in zones 3-6, South of the Sonoma / Mendocino will continue to be restricted.

Multiple delays in opening the Crab season have been attributed to excessive humpback whale entanglements and the high number of whale sightings, according to the DFWD Assessment and Mitigation program.

Recently, an endangered Pacific Sea Turtle became entangled and drowned in commercial crabbing gear. The recreational fishery opened on November 4 with hoop nets and the recreational Crab was lifted in zone 1, California’s most northerly zone.

Read the full article at the Triplicate

CALIFORNIA: Northern California Dungeness opener set for Jan. 5

December 22, 2023 — California will open its northernmost fishing zones for Dungeness crabbers Jan. 5, with closures continuing off the central and southern coasts to avoid humpback whale entanglements, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife said Wednesday.

Zones 1 and 2 from the Sonoma/Mendocino county line to the Oregon border can start fishing in early January, with a reassessment expected Jan. 11 on whether zones 3 to 6 to the south can be opened.

Under the state’s Risk Assessment and Mitigation Program criteria, the 2023-24 Dungeness season opening has been delayed due to whale sightings and entanglements, including one humpback reported entangled in crab gear Nov. 11 in Monterey Bay.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Where will the whales be? Ask the climate model

December 11, 2023 — The opening of California’s commercial crab season, which normally starts in November, is delayed once again to protect humpback whales foraging for krill and anchovies along the coast.

This region of the Pacific has been under the grip of a marine heat wave since May. “The Blob,” as this mass of warm water has become known, is squeezing cooler water preferred by whales and their prey close to shore, where fishers set their traps.

This crowding can lead to literal tangles between whales and fishing equipment, endangering the animals’ lives and requiring grueling rescue missions.

In a new study, scientists say they can now use global temperature models, commonly used in climate science, to predict up to a year in advance when hot ocean temperatures will raise the risk of whale entanglements. This lead time could allow state regulators, fishers and other businesses that depend on the fishery — as well as Californians hoping for a Dungeness crab holiday meal — to plan ahead for potential fishing restrictions.

“It really just helps give a lot more information and reduce some of that uncertainty about the future,” said Steph Brodie, lead author of the study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. Brodie is currently a research scientist at Australia’s national science agency but conducted this research while working at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The tool analyzed in the new study, called the Habitat Compression Index, works by feeding sea-surface temperature measurements into an equation that estimates the likelihood of whale habitat shrinking closer to shore. Previously, the index analyzed only recent conditions, using data from the previous month.

Read the full article at The New York Times

Where Will the Whales Be? Ask the Climate Model.

December 5, 2023 — The opening of California’s commercial crab season, which normally starts in November, is delayed once again to protect humpback whales foraging for krill and anchovies along the coast.

This region of the Pacific has been under the grip of a marine heat wave since May. “The Blob,” as this mass of warm water has become known, is squeezing cooler water preferred by whales and their prey close to shore, where fishermen set their traps.

This crowding can lead to literal tangles between whales and fishing equipment, endangering the animals’ lives and requiring grueling rescue missions.

In a new study, scientists say they can now use global temperature models, commonly used in climate science, to predict up to a year in advance when hot ocean temperatures raise the risk of whale entanglements. This lead time could allow state regulators, fishermen, and other businesses that depend on the fishery — as well as Californians hoping for a Dungeness crab holiday meal — to plan ahead for potential fishing restrictions.

“It really just helps give a lot more information and reduce some of that uncertainty about the future,” said Steph Brodie, lead author of the study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. Dr. Brodie is currently a research scientist at Australia’s national science agency, but conducted this research while working at the University of California Santa Cruz and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Read the full story at the New York Times

OREGON: Commercial Dungeness crab season delayed due to low meat yield

November 21, 2023 — The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says the commercial Dungeness crab season is being delayed at least until December 16.

According to ODFW, pre-season testing shows the crabs are too low in meat yield in some ocean areas.

The commercial bay crab fishery closes at midnight on December 1 in conjunction with the delayed open season.  ODFW says it will reopen when the ocean commercial season opens.

Read the full article at KOBI

California Dungeness opener pushed back again to mid-December

November 20, 2023 — The California commercial Dungeness crab fishery has been delayed a second time over the potential for humpback whale entanglements in gear, and poor meat quality in the northern fishing zones 1 and 2, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife said Friday.

The northern zones had been scheduled to open on Dec. 1 but testing turned up poor crab meat quality test results for Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties. The commercial fishery in zones 1 and 2 will be delayed until at least 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 16 pending another round of meat quality testing, the agency said.

Meanwhile the commercial fishery in zones 3-6 remains delayed, “due to the presence of high numbers of humpback whales and the potential for entanglement with lines and traps in this fishery,” according to the department. Whale sightings and a reported entanglement Nov. 11 have already delayed the season, a recurring situation in recent years.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Oregon crabbers and environmentalists are at odds as a commission votes on rules to protect whales

August 4, 2023 — In the wheelhouse of a crab boat named Heidi Sue, Mike Pettis watched the gray whale surface and shoot water through its blowhole.

Tangled around its tail was a polypropylene rope used to pull up crab traps. It took two men with serrated knives 40 minutes to free the whale, which swam away with a small piece of rope still embedded in its skin. That was in 2004, off the waters of Waldport, Oregon.

Pettis, a crab fisherman, said it’s the only time in his 44 years of fishing he has ever seen a whale caught in crab lines, and he believes that is proof such encounters are “extremely rare.”

Pettis is among a number of veteran crabbers who fear regulators are on the cusp of curtailing the lucrative industry with overregulation to protect whales.

Humpbacks, which migrate off Oregon’s coast, and other whales can get caught in the vertical ropes connected to the heavy traps and drag them around for months, leaving the mammals injured, starved or so exhausted that they can drown.

Read the full article at the Washington Post

Pacific Seafood fights lawsuit accusing it of anticompetitive behavior in Dungeness crab market

July 27, 2023 — Clackamas, Oregon, U.S.A.-based Pacific Seafood is fighting back against a lawsuit alleging it has engaged in anti-competitive behavior in the U.S. West Coast Dungeness crab market.

Auburn, California, U.S.A.-based Dungeness fisherman Brand Little filed a class-action lawsuit in March 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Pacific, which is one of the largest players in the fishery, accusing it of price-fixing.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

OREGON: Oregon considering further Dungeness crab restrictions

July 16, 2023 — The U.S. state of Oregon is considering a handful of new restrictions on Dungeness crab fishermen – including a 20 percent reduction in pot limits – to reduce the risk of wildlife becoming entangled in crabbing gear.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) is planning to host a meeting in Salem, Oregon, U.S.A. on 4 August to discuss the changes and evaluate the effectiveness of previously adopted measures.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource