The business Dungeness crab season in California will come to an finish early to guard humpback whales from changing into entangled in lure and buoy strains, officers introduced Thursday.
The state Division of Fish and Wildlife mentioned the shutdown of the business crabbing season will cowl waters between the Mendocino-Sonoma county line and the border with Mexico.
It marks the second yr in a row that Fish and Wildlife officers ordered an early finish to the season. In 2023, the order got here on April 14. And the early closure follows a late begin in January that already foreshortened the season severely.
The leisure take of Dungeness crab utilizing traps in these areas may also be prohibited. Leisure crabbers will be capable of use different strategies, together with hoop nets and crab snares.
North of the Mendocino-Sonoma county line to the Oregon border, business crabbing will solely be permitted to a depth of 180 ft, officers mentioned.
“Aerial and vessel surveys performed in mid-March present humpback whale numbers are growing as they return to forage off the coast of California, elevating entanglement threat,” the division mentioned in a press release.
The scenario will likely be reassessed in mid-April. Extra info will be discovered on the California Fish and Wildlife web site.
The business crab trade is considered one of California’s main fisheries. For the previous six years there have been delays and prohibitions for the crabbing season, which historically begins in mid-November, due to the potential threat to whales.
Humpback whales can get caught within the vertical ropes related to heavy business traps, which they will drag round for months, leaving them injured, starved or so exhausted that they will drown.
Humpback whales migrate north yearly from Mexico’s Baja California peninsula the place they start calves. In spring, summer season and fall the humpbacks feed on anchovies, sardines and krill off the California coast earlier than heading again south.
