Crabber: Closure ‘completely unjustified’
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will close California’s commercial Dungeness crabbing season from the Sonoma and Mendocino county lines to the Oregon border after three humpback whales in California got entangled in crabbing equipment.
The Dungeness crab fishing season was supposed to end on July 15 for Humboldt County fishers, cutting out roughly 40% of their season that began in December. While most crab is caught within the first few weeks of the season, the closure harms local fishers because of the high price of crab and the anticipated spring bite, according to local fisherman Mike Cunningham.
“It’s going to cost the industry probably millions of dollars going forward. There’s still three months left to the season here, we have about a sevenmonth season,” Cunningham said. “The bulk of the crabs are caught early in the season, but at this time of the year, it’s low volume, but high dollar.”
Cunningham added that closures and shutdowns such as this one, in addition to lost income from local fishers, also devalue the entire industry as the investment in boats, permits and gear become less valuable if it is uncertain they will be able to fish for the entire season.
“We received reports of additional humpback whale entanglements and moved quickly to close the fishery to protect migrating humpback whales that are just starting to return to California waters,” Charlton Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in a prepared statement. “While this poses an economic impact on certain sectors of our coastal fishing communities, it is important to protect both whales and the long-term viability of the commercial fishery. We will be working with the fishing fleet, researchers and other agencies to better understand these recent entanglement events and find ways to mitigate this risk in future seasons.”
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife did not respond by the Times-Standard’s print deadline to several questions, including what will be
done at the state level to assist fishers impacted by the early closure of crabbing season.
This year featured an upswing for crabbers, as the price of crab had risen back to decent levels after last year’s abysmal price drop.
While not the worst thing to happen to Humboldt County’s crabbers — that would be last year’s record low price of crab — the situation is still not ideal, according to Cunningham.
“No one’s arguing that there’s not a problem in Monterey Bay, and that’s very apparent, and the closure was probably the right action to take down there. We don’t have that problem here. They’re just applying that same solution to Monterey Bay, to an area on the North Coast where that problem does not exist. If we had been allowed to keep fishing, and migration starts and it’s coming this way, then we start taking management actions, but we’re months away from that,” Cunningham said. “I’ve crab fished since the 1970s. This is probably the single worst, maybe not the single worst, but right up there with the worst crab management decisions I’ve ever seen, it’s completely unjustified.”
The move to close crabbing season early was hailed by the Center for Biological Diversity, which praised the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for protecting whale populations.
“This closure will reduce crab gear’s deadly threat to whales, but it’s crucial for this fishery to move quickly to ropeless gear,” Kristen Monsell, legal director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s oceans program, said in a statement. “Whales will continue to suffer and die unless California officials redouble their efforts to push this industry toward whalefriendly gear. As climate change and ocean warming shift whale travel patterns, California needs to protect these endangered animals and help fisherman adapt.”