Plan to untangle whales irks fishers
Crabbers say new system expensive, ‘not functional’
Dungeness crab is one of the Bay Area’s favorite local foods and a traditional mainstay on holiday tables. But the way it’s been caught for over a century is hurting too many whales, environmentalists say, as their migration patterns have shifted with warming ocean temperatures.
There is a tool being developed to prevent those injuries. It’s a system that uses “ropeless” gear to prevent endangered whales and sea turtles from getting entangled and injured or killed in fishing lines. And legislation before the state Assembly would require crabbers to begin using it by 2025.
Yet commercial fishers say the gear is ineffective and expensive, and the legislation would further hamper an industry already struggling with restricted fishing seasons for both crab and king salmon.
The bill is in response to an upswing in reported whale entanglements on the West Coast, which spiked from 2015 to 2018. They have since tapered off, after fishers improved their practices and the season was shortened several times to protect whales. Only a handful of whales died because of crab gear in that period, but scientists say many that are seen weighed down by fishing lines eventually die from infections, starvation or drowning.
“Ropeless fishing is the only way to ensure that endangered whales and sea turtles and other critters don’t get tangled up and injured in fishing gear,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans program legal director at Center for Biological Diversity, a cosponsor of the bill.
“By requiring the use of ropeless gear, California can be a leader in helping to develop and promote sustainable fishing gear that will save whales, sea turtles and other endangered animals, not only in California but around the world.”
Crab fishers traditionally use fixed gear, with traps connected to buoys on the ocean surface with ropes that can entrap whales and other animals, especially when the ropes hang loose. With ropeless or popup gear, crabbers attach a spool of rope to each trap, then leave them at the bottom to allow crabs to wander inside.
When they return, they send an acoustic signal to the device that instructs the spool to unwind and bob to the surface. Lessexpensive versions use galvanic timed release, metal gadgets that dissolve in water after a set amount of time and then release a buoy that brings the line to the surface. Either way, the ropes are in the water for only a brief time, reducing the chance a whale will get caught up in one.
Assembly Member Rob Bonta, DAlameda, introduced the legislation, AB534, that would require sport and commercial crabbers — as well as fishers who use traps for spot prawns, sablefish and spiny lobster — to employ the method. Its hearing is set for April 8.
“The unintentional consequences of this legislation is it’s going to have a dramatic impact on California’s seafood economy,” said Mike Conroy, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.
New England lobster and snow crab fishers in Canada are testing similar gear. In 2015 federal and state agencies created a working group of scientists, conservationists and fishers to come up with ropeless options that would work with Dungeness crab in local conditions.
But local commercial crabbers who have tested the equipment have encountered problems, such as the spools rising too slowly or not at all.
“They have a bunch of experts who don’t have a clue on how crab traps work,” said Bob Maharry, who has been fishing in the Bay Area for 48 years and left the working group in frustration. He’s especially concerned about the cost, with the highertech models currently estimated at thousands of dollars per trap.
Bonta said the price would go down with time.
“We all recognize the gear is not ready for use at scale today, which is why the bill provides several years before the gear would be required,” Bonta said in a statement to The Chronicle. “And while the gear currently is expensive, technologydriving legislation like AB534 will create demand, catalyze technological developments and initiate investments that will bring down the cost.”
Federal and state funding is also available for testing and purchasing sustainable fishing gear — the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation just received a grant of $500,000 to oversee more testing of ropeless models.
Still, many fishers say the legislation overreaches, pointing out that there have been no entanglements in crab gear in California this season and only one last year, and that animal was freed.
“We as an industry understand and are fully committed to doing anything we can to make things better,” Maharry said. “We don’t want to tangle whales.”
There’s also debate over the health of the humpback whale population, the species most often entangled in local waters. While its overall numbers have rebounded in recent years, some humpback whale populations along the California coast are still considered endangered or threatened.
Proponents of the ropeless gear said it could allow crab fishing to continue long into the future, especially if whale migration patterns continue to be abnormal. A humpback whale was in the bay last week, a month earlier than usual.
The commercial crab season, which usually runs from November through June, has already been shortened several times in recent years, including last fall, to protect whales. If ropeless gear is approved, crabbers could use it in the spring, even if the season is closed to traditional gear. On April 1 the California Department of Fish and Wildlife will announce whether the season can continue, depending on whether whales are in fishing grounds.
Humpbacks used to arrive on the California coast in summer, but have been coming as early as April or May since 2012, researchers at San Francisco State University and Point Blue Conservation Science in Marin County said. They studied whale migration from 1993 to 2017 and found that earlier arrivals were associated with a marine heat wave and El Niño from 2014 to 2016, when water temperatures rose and their feed — krill and anchovies — moved closer to shore.
Suddenly, the whales and fishermen were all crowded together in a narrow band off the coast.
“If you’ve got animals and fishing gear in the same place, the animals are going to lose out,” said Ellen Hines, a San Francisco State professor of geography and environment who took part in the research and supports use of the new ropeless gear.
Longtime Bodega Bay crabber Dick Ogg, who has tested the gear about seven times and lost two pots in the process, said it is still unreliable. And while his normal traps each take only 1 minute and 20 seconds to pull up and return to the water — that includes removing the crab and adding new bait — the new traps take up to 2 minutes longer. For his 350 pots, that means an extra 11.6 hours on the water.
“Not only is it not functional. It is unrecoverable. And we would litter the ocean with debris,” Ogg said.
Geoff Shester, senior scientist at the conservation group Oceana, which does not support AB534 but has been heavily involved in the testing, said it’s too soon to write off the new equipment. As for its high cost, he suggested fishing coops or ports could purchase the equipment and lease it to members.
“If we’re able to provide whalesafe, ropelesscaught crab for Thanksgiving,” Shester said, “that would be our dream come true.”