California introduces new crabbing technology to protect whales

In San Mateo County up to California’s northern border, the traditional crabbing season is still open. But Half Moon Bay fisher Steve Mels is hopeful that the pop-up gear will provide the opportunity along the coast to keep the season going even as whales migrate and the typical season closes down. 

“We don’t know exactly when we’re going to be told we have to get traditional gear out of the water, but we have an option now,” he said. “It’s a tool to keep us going.” 

Mels worked on the new gear when it was still in the exploratory fishing permit phase and sees it as a tool to combat the impact of increasingly short crabbing seasons that have been caused by whale migration. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife typically tells fishers to pull gear from the water as whales return, leading to crabbing seasons that end far sooner than the June 30 end date. 

The gear isn’t as effective in winter storms, Mels said, because traditional traps allow boats to pull crab pots one at a time. The pop-up gear is all connected to one ground line, which is released by a remote signal that triggers buoys to float up to the surface. But it’s now an option to keep boats in the water longer. 

“This is for the spring time and this is to clean up the crabs that haven’t been caught, and give guys the ability to keep making money with Dungeness crab all the way up to June 30,” he said. 

The CDFW also sees pop-up gear as a new tool to mitigate the differing interests of whale protection and the crabbing industry. In recent years, crabbing seasons have both opened late and shut down early to protect whales from entanglement risk. 

“The use of pop-up fishing gear is an exciting new development in California fisheries management,” CDFW Director Hertel said in a March 13 press release. “For the first time, pop-up fishing gear will allow one of California’s most iconic fisheries to continue. Dungeness crab will still be brought to market while whales and sea turtles are protected from entanglement in those fishing zones.”

Some Half Moon Bay fishers, like Barry Day, are more skeptical of pop-up gear because of its limitations. Day said he’ll just be continuing to use the traditional gear until the season ends in Half Moon Bay, which could be until the end of April. 

“You definitely can’t go out in any [bad] weather, and the crew have got to be pretty well trained,” he said. 

Tim Obert, a commercial fisher who sits on a number of fishing advisory boards, also said he’d like to see how the pop-up gear works over a longer period of time before believing it’s a cure-all to the whale entanglement problems that have plagued the fishing industry. 

“We’ve found ways to mess things up in the past. I’m not completely sold that pop-up gear is this end-all, perfect way of fishing gear,” he said. “We haven’t really used the gear long enough to know how long it lasts.” 

It could be a solution in certain areas at certain times of year, however. 

“It’s kind of time, area, place for me,” Obert said. “I’ve been around long enough to see the research of it, and really paying attention to the ramp-up over the years.” 

But keeping the crabbing season afloat longer with pop-up gear doesn’t only benefit fishers, Mels said. Ultimately, it also allows Californians to buy local, fresh-caught crab they can’t get if the season is closed in May and June. 

“Those two months of the year, in June, has taken the commodity that Dungeness crab is and that belongs to Californians,” he said. “This gives people access.”