Saving Seafood

A prized southern crustacean could be Maine’s newest fishery

May 31, 2022 — The appearance of blue crab in Maine over the past couple years has researchers wondering if the prized southern crustacean is making a new home up north.

Known for their bright blue claws, blue crabs are one of the most valuable commercial fisheries in the Chesapeake Bay. While not unheard of, sightings in Maine are rare, and the species historically does stray much further than Massachusetts.

But scientists in southern Maine say they’ve found dozens of blue crabs in the salt marshes off Wells, prompting them to investigate if the species is extending its habitat north as the Gulf of Maine warms.

If it is, there’s potential for a new fishery in Maine, though there is also tremendous uncertainty around how the highly predatory crab would interact with local species, including the lobster — the bread and butter of Maine’s fishing fleet.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

A New Tool May Help Crab Fishers Sidestep Dead Zones

March 9, 2022 — The crab pots are piled high at the fishing docks in Newport, Oregon. Stacks of tire-sized cages fill the parking lot, festooned with colorful buoys and grimy ropes. By this time in July, most commercial fishers have called it a year for Dungeness crab. But not Dave Bailey, the skipper of the 14-meter Morningstar II. The season won’t end for another month, and “demand for fresh, live crab never stops,” Bailey says with a squinting smile and fading Midwestern accent.

It’s a clear morning, and he leads me aboard a white-and-blue crab boat, built in 1967 and owned by Bailey since 1992. He skirts a giant metal tank that he hopes will soon hold a mob of leggy crustaceans and ducks his tall frame into a cluttered cabin, where an age-worn steering wheel gleams beneath the front windows and a fisherman’s prayer hangs on the wall: “Dear God, be good to me. Your sea is so great and my boat is so small.”

The churning Pacific is just one challenge Bailey and his fellow crabbers must face. Recent years have also brought outbreaks of domoic acid, which renders crab unsafe to eat, and increasing incidents of humpback whales getting tangled in crab gear. However, there’s another emerging problem that threatens not only Bailey’s livelihood but the very ecosystem that sustains it. I’ve come today to see a tool that could help crabbers manage.

On the counter in the kitchenette, amid bowls of instant noodles and tinned oysters, Bailey shows me a sturdy black tube, about 60 centimeters long, that fits neatly inside a crab pot. When submerged, the contraption measures oxygen levels in the water and, when retrieved, displays them on a separate box with a screen for Bailey to read. The box also beams the data back to scientists at Oregon State University (OSU).

Most marine animals don’t breathe air, but they need oxygen to live, absorbing it from the water as they swim, burrow, or cling to the seafloor. But lately, bouts of dangerously low oxygen levels—or hypoxia—have afflicted parts of the North American west coast, affecting critters from halibut to sea stars. These “dead zones” cause ecological disruption and economic pain for fishers like Bailey, who can’t sell crabs that have suffocated in their traps.

Read the full story at Smithsonian

 

Slinky pots and ropeless gear: next angles for whale avoidance

November 22, 2021 — With new regulations turning whale avoidance into a top priority in the Gulf of Maine and off California, front-line fishermen sat Friday for a panel discussion at Pacific Marine Expo on what the future may hold for trap fisheries.

NMFS and the state of California are looking to ropeless gear for lobster and crab fisheries as the long-term solution, but such systems are still in development.

California’s Dungeness crab fishermen are yet again cooling their heels in port, awaiting an updated assessment of humpback whale movements and an all-clear from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to set gear, once the agency judges the danger of entanglements is lowered.

In recent years the usual November crab season opening has been delayed as whales congregate to feed before heading south for their breeding season, said Mike Conroy, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

The 2020 season opener was delayed into December — and then complicated when fishermen protested what they considered unfairly low prices for crabs. A price settlement and agreed-on opener didn’t happen until January.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Pacific Dungeness: Live buyers are back, frozen stocks down before peak U.S. sales time

October 7, 2021 — West Coast Dungeness crabbers got off to a late start after price negotiations with major processors delayed the harvest by a few weeks. As of Aug. 25, the fleet had put in 28.15 million pounds, and better yet, average ex-vessel prices hit $4.96 per pound, according to data with PacFIN.

Crabbers in January went fishing after agreeing to a base price of $2.75 per pound.

Though the final harvest numbers and the ex-vessel values for the season will take a few months to catch up (the season closed Aug. 15), the 2021 season brought hope to a fleet after the covid-19 pandemic hobbled markets in 2020.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Good news in the crab fishery comes from the Gulf of Alaska

September 21, 2021 –Unlike in the Bering Sea, there’s good news for crab in the Gulf of Alaska.

A huge cohort of Tanner crab that biologists have been tracking in the Westward region for three years showed up again in this summer’s survey.

“We were optimistic and we did find them again. Pretty much all the way across the board from Kodiak all the way out to False Pass, we found those crab and in good quantity,” said Nat Nichols, area manager for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game at Kodiak.

The bairdi Tanners are the larger cousins of snow crab (opilio Tanners) found in the Bering Sea.

“The very, very rough preliminary numbers look like we’ve at least hit the minimum abundance thresholds in all three areas of Kodiak, Chignik and the South Peninsula. So we’re excited about that.”

The last Tanner opener was in 2020 for 400,000 pounds, the minimum abundance number for a district to have a fishery. A fleet of 49 boats participated in that fishery and averaged over $4 per pound for the harvestable male crabs that typically weigh 2-4 pounds.

Read the full story at the Anchorage Daily News

 

Feds eye new rules to protect right whales from fishing gear

August 26, 2021 — Federal ocean regulators are considering new rules to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales from fishing gear.

The whales number only about 360 and are vulnerable to entanglement in the gear. Most of the government’s efforts to protect them has focused on regulating gear used to harvest lobsters and Jonah crabs.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it is working on a new phase of rules that will focus on other fisheries, including those that use gillnets and those that use traps and pots. Lobster and crab gear in the primary threat to the whales, but they are also vulnerable to gear used to harvest fish, conch and other valuable species, said Allison Ferreira, a spokeswoman for the agency.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Alaska crab shells displacing man-made chemicals

July 28, 2021 — Most people are unaware that the yarns and fabrics that make up our carpets, clothing, car seats, mattresses, even mop heads, are coated with chemicals and metals such as copper, silver and aluminum that act as fire retardants, odor preventers, antifungals and anti-microbials.

Now, crab shells from Alaska are providing the same safeguards in a bio-friendly way.

The metals and chemicals are being replaced by all-natural Tidal-Tex liquid treatments derived from chitosan molecules found in the exoskeletons of crab shells.

The bio-shift stems from a partnership between Leigh Fibers of South Carolina and Tidal Vision, the proprietary maker of the crab-based product that it began making in a 20-foot Conex van in Juneau six years ago. The company, which now operates near Seattle and has 22 full-time employees in three production facilities, expects to put up to 60 people to work within two years.

In July, Tidal Vision opened its newest facility within Leigh Fibers’ headquarters, bringing its earth-friendly technology into the heart of the U.S. textile industry. Leigh Fibers is one of North America’s largest textile waste and byproduct reprocessing businesses that dates back to 1866 and now services 25 countries.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

Volunteers on watch for invasive crab that could threaten Southeast Alaska fisheries

July 19, 2021 — The European green crab might be small, but it can destroy vital habitats for animals all along the food chain. It’s already costing New England shellfisheries million of dollars.

In July 2020, green crab were found in Haida Gwaii, the closest they’ve ever been to Alaska. With the help of volunteers, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game hopes to stay one step ahead of the invasive species.

At low tide at Sandy Beach in Petersburg, Sunny Rice and a group of volunteers walked toward a crab trap — on the lookout for European green crab.

Green crab are small but mighty, measuring around 3 or 4 inches wide. Their shells are a dark, greenish-brown shell with yellow spots, with five triangular points on either side of the eyes.

To check whether the crabs have made it this far north, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has asked volunteer groups to set up traps all over Southeast. Rice is with the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program and wanted to get involved. She and a group of high school students with the Petersburg Indian Association’s natural resource management program set six traps at Sandy Beach and two at Hammer Slough.

Read the full story at KTOO

CALIFORNIA: Monterey Bay fishermen work to reduce chances of whale entanglements

July 13, 2021 — On a cool Thursday morning this week, Calder Deyerle powered up his Boston Whaler and headed out of Moss Landing Harbor in search of the catch of the day. But this catch had no fins or tails or claws. Deyerle was hunting crab gear.

Five or six years ago, more than 70 whales — mostly fin, blue and humpbacks — became caught in the lines that connect a surface buoy to the crab trap resting on the ocean floor. Because of a crash in the krill population, the whales came in closer to shore to feed on alternative food sources and right into the crab lines.

Lines and traps meant for Dungeness crabs can be deadly to whales that become ensnared in the equipment, often causing dehydration, infected wounds, breathing or reproduction problems and even starvation.

But efforts by Dungeness crab fishermen have dramatically reduced the number of whale entanglements. There have been none this year. The far greater threat to whales today is not from crab gear, rather from ship strikes.

Deyerle is one of nine Monterey Bay commercial fishermen who are contributing to a project called the Lost Gear Recovery Project that is coordinated by the Monterey Bay Fisheries Trust, which in turn is permitted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Read the full story at the Monterey Herald

Crab Supply Pricing Out Delaware Restaurants as Some Crabbers Find Success Another Way

June 17, 2021 — For many Delaware families, summer means picnic tables full of steamed blue claw crabs or crab cake dinners at a favorite restaurant. But this summer, those same crabs will cost much higher prices, if you can find them at all while dining out.

Mrs. Robino’s, an Italian restaurant in Wilmington, for example, has temporarily cancelled their popular Thursday crab nights because of problems getting enough crab meat and the cost with the crab they can get their hands on.

“Now, it’s to the point where it’s just so expensive, it’s like tripled in price just about,” Andrea Wakefield of Mrs. Robino’s said.

Two issues are playing havoc with blue crab in Delaware: supply chain disruptions still upending shipping of crabs from places like Louisiana and North Carolina, where the crabs are caught in the winter months; and more locally, an inability to find crabbing manpower in the Chesapeake Bay region of Maryland and Delaware. The Chesapeake Bay crabbing industry also got off to a slow start this year due to lower numbers of adult crabs, but experts say that it isn’t a dire situation longterm.

The problems have combined to create a shortage and high prices for restaurants.

Read the full story at NBC 10