Officials order delay in Bay Area’s Dungeness crab season
For the second consecutive year, California officials are delaying the Bay Area’s commercial Dungeness crab season to decrease the chances of whales currently off the coast getting ensnarled by fishing lines.
The season, scheduled to start Monday, will be postponed until at least Dec. 1, when the next assessment will take place.
“While no one wants to delay the season … a delay is necessary to reduce the risk of entanglement,” Charlton H. Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said Nov. 4. “The fleet has gone to great lengths to be more nimble in order to protect whales and turtles, and the results are promising.”
He made the announcement on behalf of the CDFW and what’s called the Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group, which includes members of the commercial crab fleet, environmental organizations and other agencies.
Representatives for fishing crews applauded the declaration.
“We support any decision that will allow for the best commercial crab fishing season opportunities for our fishermen,” said Ben Platt, president of the California Coast Crab Association, noting that new regulations could “shut crab fishing down for even one whale interaction with our gear.”
“It’s a prudent decision to wait two weeks to prevent that possibility from happening.”
During aerial surveys Oct. 28-29 off the California coast, CDFW staff observed 48 humpback whales and another vessel survey approved by the agency “made 118 sightings of an estimated 345 humpback whales,” the state declaration said.
“When the whales migrate out of the fishing grounds in coming weeks, CDFW stands ready to open the commercial season,” Bonham said.
The ruling affects the Central zone from the Sonoma-mendocino county line south through Morro Bay, San Francisco and Half Moon Bay and down to Point Conception in Santa Barbara County.
San Jose Unified School District announced plans Nov. 2 to reopen classrooms in January to students who have been studying at home through online remote learning since the coronavirus pandemic erupted in March.
The announcement from the district with more than 28,000 students in 41 elementary, middle and high schools comes amid growing impatience among many parents with continued school closures even as coronavirus cases subside and many private, charter and small district schools already have reopened.
“We are actively planning and preparing to welcome students back for inperson instruction in January,” said Superintendent Nancy Albarrán. “Our amazing staff are continuing to prepare our schools, including classrooms and common areas, and are developing training for our students and staff.”
The reopening plan assumes that Santa Clara County continues to show improvement in coronavirus outbreaks. The district won’t confirm the decision until Dec. 30, the last day before the targeted January 5 reopening when the county’s ranking could change in the state’s reopening system.
Under that system’s four color-coded tiers, schools in the purple tier for widespread outbreaks cannot reopen classrooms, unless they are elementary schools granted waivers by state and local health authorities. Schools can reopen after two weeks in the red tier for significant outbreaks, or after progressing further to the orange moderate or yellow minimal outbreak tiers.
Santa Clara County reached the red tier in early September and the orange tier in mid-october. Palo Alto Unified returned younger students to the classroom on Oct. 12, More than 50 other mostly private, charter and small public elementary schools have opened with waivers in Santa Clara County, but most large public school districts have not.
Oakland Unified School District also has yet to reopen.
“It won’t be before January at the earliest,” said Oakland Unified spokesman John Sasaki.
But with mounting consensus that distance learning, though much improved since the spring, isn’t as good as in-person instruction, as well as indications that schools have not seen many virus outbreaks, parents are becoming more eager to return.
Jessica Nemire, whose daughters Charlie, 9, and Maddie, 7, attend Booksin Elementary in Willow Glen, said she’s hopeful they can get back in the classoom as soon as possible. She has friends whose kids attend private schools that have gone back.
“I’d love for my kids to go back to school as long as it’s safe,” Nemire said. “I think my kids are doing the best they could, but it’s definitely not an ideal solution and certainly not a long-term solution. I’m cautiously optimistic they’ll actually go back in January. I would love to have them already back in school.”
Contact John Woolfolk at 408-920-5782.