Dungeness crab is a California classic. Since these crustaceans first took off commercially in San Francisco around 1848, California crabbers have been dropping their traps and hauling them in.
The Dungeness crab fishery is one of California's biggest fisheries. In many ways, it's also one of the state's most sustainable seafood operations. Size and gender restrictions work to safeguard population numbers while the crab traps themselves minimize bycatch.
But in recent years, the crab season has opened later and ended earlier. The reason? Whale entanglements. And yes, climate change is to blame.
Gabriela Glueck, Good Food's Julia Child reporting fellow, explores how the rise in entanglements has fueled a conflict between environmentalists and fishermen.
Gabriela Glueck: Last July, off the coast of Palos Verdes, a group of expert whale rescuers made their way onto the scene. Justin Viezbicke was leading the mission, standing on the front of a small inflatable motor boat, holding a long pole with a knife on the end. Justin is the California Marine Mammal Response Coordinator for NOAA fisheries. And he leads the response team for whales that get tangled up in rope or other gear.
Justin Viezbicke: Keep going, keep going, keep going. Ok, he's right here. Follow my pole.
Gabriela Glueck: The humpback in question is huge.
Justin Viezbicke: Just stay right here, Bill. Don't speed up, don't speed up.
Gabriela Glueck: He's skittish and nervous, evasive. And for good reason. He's tangled up in a mess of rope and buoys that looks like they might have come from a Dungeness crab trap. As rescuers get closer, they can see the line slicing into the whale's fluke or tail.
Justin Viezbicke: We'll get in what we call it, basically, it's a tow behind the whale. So we're actually holding on to that line behind the whale and being towed behind the whale. Then we can reach up with the poles and make cuts up in front of us.
Gabriela Glueck: After nearly four days, Justin and other first responders managed to free the humpback.
Justin Viezbicke: Got it! Yes!
Gabriela Glueck: The process is dangerous. For Justin, it is also emotional.
It can take days to free whales from fishing gear that lays on the ocean floor with lines leading up to the water’s surface. Video courtesy of NOAA.
Justin Viezbicke: When you see the wounds and you see the damage and you see the struggle that these whales are going through, it does leave a lasting impression.
Gabriela Glueck: Over the last ten or so years, Justin has seen an increase in the number of entanglements in crabbing gear along California's coast. The fishery uses wire-mesh pots to catch crabs. These traps rest on the ocean floor with a line of rope leading up to a buoy on the surface. When whales get caught up in the rope, they twist and turn which often tightens the gear. Vertical lines have always posed a potential danger to whales. But throughout most of California's crabbing history, whales didn't spend that much time swimming through crabbing grounds when traps were out… until the mid 2010s, when a marine heatwave hit California's coast.
Geoff Shester: That warm water blob basically compressed the areas that the whale food can actually be in into a much higher overlap and co-occurrence with the crab fishery.
Gabriela Glueck: That's Dr. Geoff Shester. He works at Oceana, an advocacy group focused on ocean conservation. He's the California Campaign Director and he has given lots of thought to the problem. When entanglement numbers spiked around ten years ago, Geoff joined a working group committed to finding a solution.
Geoff Shester: Maybe you could put some pingers that would make a sound that would scare the whales away. Maybe we could make a line that has some weak links in it.
Gabriela Glueck: But not everyone was satisfied with the pace of progress. A different environmental nonprofit, the Center for Biological Diversity, sued California's Department of Fish and Wildlife. That lawsuit and the following settlement led the state to shorten the crabbing season.
Barry Day has been fishing in Half Moon Bay since 2007 and has seen the season dramatically shrink to two months. Photo by Gabriela Glueck.
Barry Day: Well, we used to go from November 15 to June.
Gabriela Glueck: Barry Day has been fishing out of Half Moon Bay since 2007.
Barry Day: Now, the last three years, we've been sort of starting mid-January and finishing in March. So there you go. That's our fishing season. It's been dramatically chopped to pieces.
Gabriela Glueck: For him, the shortened crabbing season can mean months without a paycheck. He's watched his friends and fellow crabbers leave the industry all together.
Barry Day: The boat there, boat there, yeah, they're just done with it.
Gabriela Glueck: It's hard not to root for the whales. But standing on Barry's boat in Half Moon Bay, you start to understand what it means to be part of a struggling industry.
Barry Day: You go to Dock Street Brokers, the amount of crab permits up for sale now, that speaks for itself.
Gabriela Glueck: This conflict — about whale entanglement in crab gear — boils down to numbers and different ideas about what's tolerable. For some, the goal is zero. Barry, and many fishermen like him, say that's unrealistic, unless there's a different way to catch crab. Enter pop-up gear. Instead of a line trailing to the surface, the line and buoy stay with the crab trap on the seafloor. Geoff Shester from Oceana thinks pop-up gear is the future.
Geoff Shester: And the sort of magic or technological innovation is this idea of an acoustic signal that's sent down from a boat, kind of like a cell phone call underwater that can actually ping a specific trap, that basically tells it, okay, release all of the lines, and then the buoys and the line float up to the surface where they can collect those.
Gabriela Glueck: Barry Day tried out the gear just last year as part of an Experimental Fishing Permit, which allowed him to continue crabbing into the spring, after the normal gear season had ended. While it helped bring in some additional money, Barry wasn't totally enthusiastic. He'd had to train his crew on the new gear. And he found that deploying the gear in rougher waters was tough.
Barry Day: It's a lot more dangerous, all right. And this is an appeasement, and the public will go, oh, wow, yeah, pop-up, that's a great idea. But the reality of actually doing it is a whole different story.
Gabriela Glueck: Right now, the cost of buying this new gear mostly falls on fishermen. Although some governmental and environmental organizations are working on programs to minimize the burden. While the future for the traditional California crab fishery is uncertain, one thing is clear: people want crab. Dedicated customers make the trek to Pillar Point Harbor early Sunday mornings to buy Barry's crabs. All of them. Right now, each crab is going for around $21 a piece. It's late in the season and a low-haul year. All things considered, Barry keeps it positive, unless you tell him you plan on freezing his crabs.
Barry Day: Don't even go there, mate.
Day sells his crabs for $21 a piece but the shorter season dips into profits. Photo by Gabriela Glueck.
Gabriela Glueck: And if you do get your hands on fresh crab this season, Barry says eat all of it. That means no throwing out the innards. Instead, you can give Barry Day's recipe a try.
Barry Day: Oh, the dip recipe! A lot of people's minds, when they see the guts, they go yuck but they got the wrong attitude in their head. It's actually quite nice and it's rich. So what I used to do in Aussie and I do it here too, you get the guts out, put it in a bowl, take all the stuff out, mix it up, a couple of dabs of worcestershire sauce, little bit of sour cream, whatever, mix it up. And just don't tell them, just put the bowl on the table. Oh, wow, this is beautiful. Oh yes, lovely. Special recipe.
Gabriela Glueck: Until crabbers can significantly minimize entanglements, the shortened season is likely to last. It's part of a balancing act that crab lovers and whale watchers will be keeping an eye on.
Experimental fishing permits and pop-up gear that sends signals to release lines when whales become entangled may help lengthen the crabbing season. Photo by Gabriela Glueck.