Fishermen signal wish to wait for all-clear on Dungeness crab before any catch

A debate among state wildlife officials about a partial opening of the stalled commercial crab season has inflamed tensions among fishermen up and down the California coast but nowhere more so than Bodega Bay, where members of the local fleet say they have the most at stake.

A move to reopen waters south of nearby Point Reyes to commercial crabbing not only would put a dangerously high volume of fishing gear in a concentrated area, it would provide large, northern vessels an opportunity to clean out the Dungeness stocks, which Bodega Bay skippers might otherwise fish at a later date, opponents say.

Other grievances have added to the dispute, including concerns among fisherman that heavy harvest activity so late in the crab season would encroach on Dungeness breeding and whale migration. Consumer confidence in the industry also could be sunk if the newly harvested crab results any human health issues, fishermen said.

“This is the worst - the worst - attempt to manage a fishery in my ?60 years, ever, ever, ever,” said Stan Carpenter, president of the Fishermens Marketing Association of Bodega Bay. “You know that it’s horrible when you’ve got a fleet of, I don’t know, 400 to 500 boats, and 90 percent of them don’t want to go.

“When a fisherman asks not to open a fishery up, it’s got to be screwed up,” he said. “It is terrible.”

Crabbers have been idled for the past three months because a persistent algae bloom tainted some shellfish, including crab, with excessive levels of a neurotoxin called domoic acid.

Until now, commercial crab vessels up and down the coast were all in the same position: tied up at dock.

But last week, as federal officials considered a request for disaster assistance for the industry, state health agencies declared that Dungeness crab caught south of Point Reyes no longer posed a risk to human health. Sport anglers were allowed to harvest the crustaceans south of the Marin County landmark immediately.

Commercial crabbers, however, thought it had been settled that any commercial fishery would only be reopened when the entire coast tested clean, as had been requested last winter by the California Dungeness Crab Task Force, which provides guidance to state regulators.

In a departure from that position, state Fish and Wildlife officials made clear late last week they were moving to reopen the commercial waters south of Point Reyes.

Rather than jump at the prospect of getting back on the water, most commercial fishermen say the chance to scrape together a few dollars after months of sitting idle carries too many long-term risks for the fleet and the fishery’s future. Recent annual harvests have been worth more than $60 million.

For starters, they worry that consumers, informed that only some crab are safe, will not have the necessary confidence in the product to sustain a market. The migration of just one tainted crab from closed waters into the open fishery could pose risks that couldn’t be detected by anglers, retailers or consumers, fishermen said.

But they are also worried about drawing the state’s entire commercial crab fleet, or much of it, into an area stretching from Point Reyes to Half Moon Bay, throwing tons of gear and rope in the water when the breeding season is about to start and putting the smallest boats up against behemoth shrimp vessels from further north without enough real estate to share.

Bodega Bay crabbers are especially frustrated because the partial fishery would split the usually unified District 10 management zone that runs north to the Mendocino County line, giving large vessels and other outsiders a toehold in their territory without the competitive protections that would usually be in place.

Carpenter and others said it would be unprecedented to put so much gear and pressure on the Dungeness crab population during breeding, or what’s known as “the clutch.”

“I don’t know any fishery that is open at a time when the entity you’re fishing for is in the spawn,” said Bodega Bay fisherman Dick Ogg. “These crabs are going to start clutching here, and they’re probably clutching down by that point.”

Crabbers up and down the coast have made ?similar arguments in recent days, in meetings ?and conference calls. The aim was to try to reach consensus in advance of a public meeting Tuesday of the executive committee for the Dungeness crab task force.

Some crabbers, mostly from further south, near Half Moon Bay, did support a piecemeal opening of the commercial fishery.

But the committee unanimously approved a request that Fish and Wildlife wait to lift the ban on commercial crabbing until it was cleared to do so on a statewide basis or, at the least, only open areas by management district, rather than introduce new arbitrary boundaries.

“Make no mistake, fishermen here are ready to go fishing, want to go fishing and need to go fishing,” said Eureka fisherman Mike Cunningham, a member of the executive committee. “But I think we’re looking at the bigger picture here. We want a rational opening, and we don’t want to put any port in a bind, especially Bodega Bay.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.