Hope for local crab later in the season
Tests show levels of toxin are falling, but more results needed
Local crabs for Thanksgiving are a lost cause, but crustacean lovers and local crabbers got a glimmer of hope Thursday.
New tests showed that crabs collected from the area around San Francisco, Half Moon Bay and Morro Bay have dropped to safe levels for domoic acid, the neurotoxin causing the unprecedented closure of the commercial crab season, which was supposed to open Nov. 15.
The new results from the California Department of Public Health are no guarantee the season will open any time soon, though. Local crabs tested high for domoic acid in previous tests, and in order to lift its health advisory against Dungeness crab for specific areas, all samples collected from that area have to test at safe levels — defined as below
30 parts per million — for two weeks in a row.
Even if the health advisory is lifted, it takes time for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to decide whether to open one or two regions at a time, or to wait until the entire coast is clear. The department would not comment on potential timelines.
“We’d have to take a look at what our options are,” Jordan Traverso, spokeswoman for the Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in an e- mail. “We want to keep the season as intact as possible, but we also would have to heavily monitor the resource if we opened such a small location. Commercial and recreational crabbers from across the state would likely all then be drawing from the same small area, and that may have ramifications, too.”
High toxin levels elsewhere
While domoic acid levels in California crab are decreasing, they’re still high enough in Oregon crabs to cause the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to announce Friday that it is postponing the state’s commercial crab season, which was due to open Dec. 1.
A week ago the California Department of Public Health lifted its previous health advisory on sardines, anchovies and bivalve shellfish that had been affected by domoic acid. Though domoic levels are still testing high in crabs north and south of San Francisco, those are also going down; for example, 50 percent of crabs collected from outside of the Russian River area tested at safe levels earlier this week.
“It is clearing up with respect to bivalves — clams and mussels — ( and) anchovies and sardines. The crabs for whatever reason ... tend to hold on to it longer,” said Patrick Kennelly, chief of food safety at the state health department. “We started seeing this bloom dissipating in August. It’s just taking a lot of time to get the organisms out of their system.”
Kennelly said the infected crabs, which are omnivorous carrion feeders, probably ate dead anchovies from the sea floor that were infected by domoic acid. The toxin is most concentrated in the viscera — or guts, including the butter — and is also present in the meat.
Other seafood safe to eat
Meanwhile, the algal bloom that caused the delay of California’s Dungeness crab season has raised public concerns not just about the region’s favorite crustacean, but the entire Bay Area seafood supply, according to local seafood purveyors like Anna Larsen, owner of Siren Fish Co.
“My customers are asking if other seafood, other types of fish and shellfish, is safe to eat. And they wonder, once crab is back on the market, is it going to be safe to eat?” Larsen said.
Kennelly said that all other commercially caught California seafood is safe to eat. ( There is still a health advisory against eating mussels, clams and whole scallops caught recreationally in Humboldt or Del Norte counties.)
When it comes to crab, it’s impossible to say how much domoic acid it takes to make a person sick, Kennelly said. It depends on the person’s size and level of tolerance as well as the amount of domoic acid in the individual crab, which varies as shown in the weekly or biweekly testing of six crabs from each region.
‘ Not worth the risk’
Kennelly is concerned that some recreational crabbers are ignoring the warnings and could easily become infected without realizing it because symptoms of mild domoic acid poisoning mirror food- borne illness, such as vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, headache and dizziness. Severe cases would result in much more serious side effects — even death.
“This is a very potent neurotoxin,” Kennelly said. “It can do a lot of serious damage, including permanent loss of short- term memory. I wouldn't want that. It’s just not worth the risk.”
The closure doesn’t mean there isn’t any Dungeness crab to be had. The last season ended in May before the algal bloom became a problem, and many crabs from that season are available frozen. Plus, crabs are coming in from Washington state.
“There is a lot of high- quality frozen crab out there,” Larsen said. “If crab is an essential part of your Thanksgiving, you will find it.”