April 11, 2019 — Bay Area crab fishermen were racing to haul in their crab traps following the settlement of a lawsuit that is shutting down the commercial dungeness crab season nearly two months early.
Crab season, which opens in November and normally runs until the end of June, is shutting down April 15th as part of a settlement aimed at reducing the number of whale entanglements in crab gear. The settlement follows a lawsuit filed by the environmental group Center For Biological Diversity targeting the State of California over an increase in entanglements.
“We’ve always believed there were common sense solutions to this problem,” said Steve Jones, spokesman for CBD, “and we feel by working with the state and the crabbers we’ve found one in this case.”
Fishermen said they were blind-sided by the settlement, getting notice of the early shutdown only two weeks before the deadline. Earlier this week in the fishing hamlet of Bodega Bay on the Sonoma Coast, boats filled with crab traps pulled in to the docks to unload their traps.