Why there’s no Dungeness

Regarding “Whales still delaying Dungeness crab season” (Bay Area, Nov. 23): The Northern California Dungeness crab fleet invests in boats and traps, and local captains and crews work very hard to deliver crabs to buyers, who sell them to stores so your family can have crabs with your Thanksgiving dinner. That’s not happening this year.

Crabs have been delivered to San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf for 160 years. There are thousands of good paying jobs involved. The fishery was very well-managed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife until the spring of 2016.

That’s when the fishing fleet was restricted after high levels of domoic acid, a naturally occurring neurotoxin, were found along the coast and in the crab population. Shifting crab fishing farther off the coast brought the fleet into a concentrated area with humpback whales, which are managed under the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. An increased tangling event took place with crab traps, which led to a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity that forced the state to enact new rules on entanglements.

At that point the fleet jumped into action. Best practices were formulated. We replaced all our lines with zero buoyancy rope. We set up programs at every port to clean up lost gear.

Federal regulations are important for keeping a balance between human use and a healthy environment. They can also be affected by the currents of politics and economic interests. It is a difficult balancing act and one the crab consumers of California have been on the losing end for the past five years.

The state is delaying this fishing season due to the number humpback whales. In the past two years, we have had one confirmed entanglement, and the whale was later freed. The fleet has gotten zero recognition for expensive whale friendly fixes. Fish and Wildlife has offered us nothing but bad choices. There are some common sense fixes to this problem.

If federal officials agree that the humpback whale population is stable and rising, they could be delisted. We could agree that certain oceanic conditions (i.e., hot or cold water or intense concentration of domoic acid) are important factors contributing to whale and trap entanglements.

Common sense and good management is what it’ll take to have local Thanksgiving crabs again.

Larry Collins, San Francisco Community Fishing Association