Crab season delay ‘scary’ for North Coast fishermen

January 07, 2016

On Jan. 4, the California Department of Public Health released the summary of domoic acid levels in crabs caught along the California coast.

As of Dec. 31, the health advisory for crabs caught between the Santa Barbara/Ventura County Line and Latitude 35 (40 minutes north of the Piedras Blancas Light Station in San Luis Obispo County) was lifted. But dangerous levels of the toxin were found in crabs caught as recently as Dec. 27 in the northern part of the state.

That’s bad news for Don and Teresa Akin, of The Fish Peddler, and Scott Hockett, of Noyo Fish Company.

Don Akin has two boats, which he uses to catch crabs in Bodega Bay, and Teresa Akin runs the retail end of the business on Cunningham Street in Ukiah. Hockett’s small fleet of 15 boats fishes in Fort Bragg, Shelter Cove and Bodega Bay.

Both fishermen also catch salmon and sablefish, though Akin said the sablefish quotas were exceeded early this year, probably due to the lack of salmon. “There was a historically poor to very poor salmon season,” he said.

Following that dismal season, fishers were hoping for a brisk trade in crab over the holidays. But the commercial crab season hasn’t even started yet, which forced the Akins to close the retail portion of their business.

“Selling clams and mussels isn’t enough to keep us open,” Teresa Akin explained, adding that this season was “the first time we’ve ever had a holiday at home, because normally we’d be working all the way through Christmas Eve…spending the holiday with family was nice, but tough when you have no income.”

In November, Congressman Jared Huffman was among representatives who signed a letter asking the governor to be prepared to request federal disaster relief for those whose livelihoods depend on the crab industry.

“To date, we haven’t gotten a formal response on letterhead” to that request, said Ben Miller, Huffman’s chief of staff.

Formal disaster relief is determined by loss of revenue calculations that cannot be made as long as there is some possibility that the season, usually a $60 million a year industry, will open. “If they get a six-week season, but crab prices are through the roof,” he added, the chance remains that the situation will not fall within the parameters of a federal disaster.

In the meantime, Hockett reported that many of his crew members are living on credit, or “the little bit of savings they had...the insurance, the mortgage, the bills keep coming,” he said. Many in the fishing industry are paying mortgages on the boats they need in order to continue working.

 “Time is not our friend here,” Huffman remarked, shortly after the most recent test results forced those boats to remain idle.

In 2006, after a massive fish kill in the Klamath Basin, salmon fishers qualified for federal disaster relief. Hockett remembered that “it took years to get that money when the salmon got shut down.”

Asked if crab fishers would have to wait until June 30 (when the crab season normally ends) to apply for relief, Huffman said that “there comes a point when it probably makes sense to call it, rather than delay federal relief. But we’re not at that point right now.”

According to Rachelle Fisher, of the Dungeness Crab Task Force, decisions about the crabbing season “have been made by a consultative process between the California Department of Public Health, OEHHA (Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment), and California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

As far as the DCTF’s recommendations, it has not yet considered a recommendation to call off the season. “We have to err on the side of public health,” Huffman said, “but also think about the livelihoods of the fishing community.”

The California Department of Public Health requires that “two consecutive sets of crabs, six crabs per set, collected seven days apart,” contain levels of domoic acid lower than 30 parts per million for viscera.

Matt Conens, in the Office of Public Affairs at the CDPH, cautioned that “the current stretch of inclement weather will likely delay the fishermen from catching additional crab this week,” which would further delay the start of the season.

Domoic acid, the neurotoxin that causes red tide, is found in phytoplankton, most of which are single-celled plants that rely on carbon dioxide, sunlight and other nutrients. According to the NASA Earth Observatory webpage, “phytoplankton are the foundation of the aquatic food web, the primary producers, feeding everything from microscopic, animal-like zooplankton to multi-ton whales.”

Therefore, a large bloom of toxic phytoplankton can have far-reaching effects. “Some of our people believe the bloom is due to warmer ocean water temperatures,” said Jordan Traverso, Deputy Director of Communication at California Fish and Wildlife.

She was referring to the “warm blob out on the Pacific,” and “strange things taking place, keeping waters warmer than usual.” However, she added that she did believe that “signs are going the right way.”

On Dec. 27, 17 percent of the test crabs from the port in Bodega Bay had levels of domoic acid at 20 ppm. Two ports in Half Moon Bay showed that none of the test crabs exceeded dangerous levels.

“Outside of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, a lot of what the state does is dependent on the elements,” Miller acknowledged. Hockett, who predicted that the most recent round of testing would not be favorable to fishermen like him, described the situation as “scary. I don’t know what we need,” he added, “but we need something.”


Source: by Sarah Reith