Crab season delays devastate local fishermen
The season was postponed 3 times in 2022
Due to the potential risk of whale and sea turtle entanglements with fishing gear, the Dungeness crab fishery season has been delayed repeatedly in 2022, a years-long trend of increased fishery postponements, which has led to big financial losses for local fishermen that have negative rippling effects in their personal lives.
“It's cut into our season so that we may only get two, maybe three months, with our gear out,” said local commercial fisherman David Toriumi. “It's very very frustrating.”
In years past, the typical season for harvesting Dungeness crab spanned from about mid-November through mid-July. This year, delays in the fishery were announced by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife first on Oct. 28, again on Nov. 21 and a third time on Dec 8. Later in December, the agency announced a statewide opening of the fishery Sunday, but with restrictions. Toriumi and other local anglers could only put out half the number of crab traps.
Toriumi, who has two boats and works for himself, sinks or floats financially by his own efforts, in theory. But when the opening of Dungeness crab season experiences repeated delays, boat and mortgage payments start to swell, and become a continuous source of stress for Toriumi and his wife and two kids.
“We took everything out on the house to get the second boat and now payments are doubled for the mortgage,”
said Toriumi. “We are harvesters of the ocean and any farmer in California on land that suffers from some act of god that limits the supply chain, gets subsidized. It bothers us that we are not in that same realm because we're literally losing everything we have.”
Toriumi is also a member
of the California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group, which is a task force of commercial and recreational anglers and representatives from numerous organizations.
The group was formed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in
2015 to guide whale entanglement reduction efforts, provide guidance and support to the fishing industry about entanglement reduction and also guide state government to reduce the risks of whale entanglements in Dungeness crab fishing gear.
In 2016, whale entanglements were on the rise due to warming ocean waters, which led to toxic algae blooms and whales hunting for food closer to the coastline unbeknownst to fishers. As a result of the increased entanglements at that time, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit against the Department of Fish and Wildlife in 2017 alleging it was violating the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit led to increased protective management action in commercial Dungeness crab fishery, which resulted in the past few years of repeated closures.
A recent study by UC Santa Cruz Postdoctoral Scholar Rachel Seary suggests that although assessment is being done to reduce the harm to migrating wildlife such as whales and sea turtles, there is little assessment done to determine the decreasing economic viability of the crab fishery when it faces enhanced mitigation in the form of repeated delays — especially during the holiday season, which Toriumuni can attest to.
“There's a tradition all through California where people have crab for Thanksgiving, crab for Christmas and New Year's, and here we are, four years in a row where we've missed a big part, if not all of the holiday season,” said Toriumi. “It's ruining the traditions and taking away our connection with the community.”
Toriumi points out that the less he and other small vessel crabbers can catch locally, skipping the middleman and selling directly from the docks, the more consumers are pushed toward imported, farm raised seafood.
“It's like rewriting history,” said Toriumi. “Younger generations will never even know where the seafood on their plate comes from.”
According to the modeling used in the study, the total crab fishery revenue in the region that includes the Monterey Bay would have been $9.4 million higher in the 2019 season and $14.4 million higher in the 2020 season in the absence of closures and other disturbances.
The study also points out that revenue losses were larger for large vessels, or a loss in revenue of about $27,000 in 2019 and $39,000 in 2020. Small vessels faced an approximate income loss of $18,000 in 2019 and $33,000 in 2020. The study also shows that small vessels were estimated to have incurred a larger percentage of income loss compared to larger vessels, with a median loss of 25% and 45% in 2019 and 2020, compared to large vessels who suffered a median of 23% and 37%.
There have been three whale entanglements associated with crab fishing gear off the coast of California this year, according to a report from the Nation Marine Fisheries Service, and all three whales were set free, said Toriumi. He said he feels that the regulations and restrictions imposed on the Dungeness crab fishery are overkill, and are destroying the livelihoods of commercial fishermen, and all the other businesses associated with the industry such as bait shops, gift shops and restaurants.
Currently, Toriumi is working with Seary to compose an economic impact study about fishery closures in the Monterey Bay specifically, and, with bills piling up and a family to take care of, he's trying to make the best out of what's left of the shortened crabbing season.
“It's literally tearing families apart,” said Toriumi. “Unfortunately, it's not only affecting us financially. It's affecting us emotionally, mentally and physically.”