Dungeness crab fishery held up again by recent whale and turtle entanglements

Interest in the delicate meat of California’s Dungeness crabs is high, especially now for New Year’s Eve, but fish markets have been kept waiting for local supplies of the delectable crustacean.

Restrictions on when the California Dungeness crab fishery can operate were put in place four years ago in response to the number of whales being entangled in the lines and, while it has delayed the started in the years since, this year and last year will have seen the shortest and most limited seasons.

Before the restrictions, the crab fishing season off California started before Thanksgiving, in plenty of time for holiday tables. In recent years, fishermen’s ability to drop their gear has been pushed back because whales and turtles were still be spotted in their fishing zones. This season, fishermen can start dropping their crab pots on Jan. 5, and only in the two most northern California zones. In central and southern California no start date has been announced.

Officials with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations said the industry does its best to avoid whales and have accepted limiting the seasons, but notes that since the restrictions have been in place, the industry has dropped from 450 active vessels to fewer than 100 and has lost out on tens of millions of dollars.

And, Shala Mansur-O’Keefe, who operates Jon’s Fish Market in Dana Point Harbor, has had to find other sources to serve her customers.

Last year, she paid a premium to get Dungeness crabs flown from the Northwest, she said. With a mounting pile of orders this week, she said she planned to drive to Long Beach to buy live-cooked crabs caught off Alaska, Canada, Washington and Oregon. While they will still be tasty, they are not from California and Mansur-O’Keefe said she’s seen a pronounced increase in customers who want locally and responsibly caught seafood.

“There are packaged frozen ones from the Northwest, but most people want them to live and be local from California,” she said. “They want seafood from their own coast.”

To determine the start of the crabbing season, spotters in planes and boats scour the ocean across six zones of California coast along the continental shelf. If too many animals are sighted, the start of the recreational and commercial Dungeness crab fishing season is delayed.

Recent data reviewed just before Christmas indicated several whales, especially humpbacks, are still feeding in the area. The whales look for anchovies near the shore, where many vertical fishing lines connected to crab pots would be dropped.

This year’s El Nino forecast could drive even more whales closer to shore, creating a sort of “perfect storm for increased entanglements,” said Geoff Shester, a senior scientist with Oceana who is also a member of the California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group created to monitor the California coastline for whales and turtles.

In November, representatives from various state and federal agencies and the working group met with California wildlife officials to assess the season. On Nov. 11, a humpback had been found entangled off central California.  Also, a rare and endangered Pacific leatherback turtle was found dead in California Dungeness crab gear near the Farallon Islands off San Francisco, leading the group to broadly recommend to Charlton Bonham, director of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, to keep the fishery closed.

Just about two weeks ago, local rescue groups from the Pacific Marine Mammal Center and Sea World San Diego attempted to free a humpback caught in gear, but it disappeared, likely continuing its migration south. Officials could not determine the gear’s source.

On Friday, Dec. 29, officials from the wildlife department confirmed that a humpback entangled in California Dungeness crab gear was found off Mexico’s Banderas Bay. A rescue team was able to remove most of the gear, including 196 feet of rope and two buoys.

Through an interview with the fishermen, NOAA officials determined the gear was likely set in California’s most northern zone during the 2022-23 season and likely lost early in the season, the wildlife department reported.

Preliminary numbers from NOAA report 26 confirmed whale entanglements off the West Coast in 2023 – most were humpbacks – and 10 appeared caught in Dungeness crab gear. That included two killer whales, two gray whales and six humpback whales. A final count is expected early next year.

NOAA experts first recorded entanglement spikes in 2014, when a warm blob of water in the ocean pushed the whales and Dungeness crab fishery together. Entanglements doubled from 2013 to 2014; in 2016, the numbers spiked to nearly 60.

In 2021, NOAA reported that entanglements were trending down. In 2022, along the West Coast, there were 30 entangled whales reported.

Studies by NOAA found that 75% of the entanglements result in death because the heavy weight of the lines and pots wrap around the whales bogging them down, slicing their flukes and restricting their mouths.

Alternative gear has been developed, though there is a challenge to getting more funded and manufactured, Shester said. “There is now major interest in pop-up gear as the reality is finally setting in.”

Manufactured in San Diego, the “pop up” gear stores the line and the buoy with the trap on the sea floor until fishermen are ready to retrieve it, eliminating vertical lines in the water that can wrap around whales and other sea life.

Though only the northernmost zones will open this coming week, Glen Spain, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, said some of the fleet’s larger boats that operate out of the more southern zones will take advantage and head north because fishing permits are valid statewide.

“The short and delayed season has been very tough on our fleet with many families desperate for income,” Spain said. “So even this small opening is very welcome.”