Commercial Dungeness crab fishermen in California have agreed to stop fishing three months earlier than usual both this year and next year as the result of a legal settlement aimed at protecting whales and sea turtles from entanglement in their gear.
The local Dungeness season will come to a halt on April 15 this year, and in 2020 it will end on April 1 in the Monterey Bay and in the region surrounding the San Francisco Bay, from the Mendocino County line to Pigeon Point. The shortened seasons could result in “multiple millions” of dollars in losses to state fishermen, said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.
The fleet is still recovering from even bigger losses during the domoic acid outbreak that delayed and restricted several Dungeness crab seasons starting in 2015. The outbreak was a result of the same warming ocean conditions that likely caused whales to venture closer to shore, and thus closer to fishing gear, than usual…