Saving Seafood

OREGON: Questions about federal permit hang over commercial crab fishery

May 18, 2026 — Oregon’s valuable commercial Dungeness crab fishery has seen significant changes in recent years as the state looks to minimize and monitor whale entanglements involving gear used in the fishery.

Now more changes are on the horizon. And looming over everything is uncertainty around the details of a federal permit the state is seeking that would allow the fishery to have some degree of impact on endangered humpback populations.

Many of the recent tweaks and additions to Dungeness crab fishery operations are in fact tied to a conservation plan the state is required to complete in order to obtain the incidental take permit under Section 10 of the federal Endangered Species Act. This permit could provide some certainty to fishermen that even if their gear is implicated in humpback whale entanglements, fishing won’t immediately be shut down. The submittal process is underway now, but state fishery managers say it could be several years before a permit is issued.

An industry meeting in Astoria on Thursday hosted by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife staff was intended to brief local commercial crabbers and gather input from them ahead of a meeting in August where Oregon Fish and Wildlife commissioners are expected to consider a suite of new regulations connected to the conservation plan, including the possibility of electronic vessel monitoring for the upcoming season, the use of experimental fishing gear and making what had been a temporary rule to close the fishery a month early permanent.

But the main question on crabbers’ minds was the federal take permit and how many whales NOAA Fisheries might allow the state fishery to impact. For them it is the question that nearly everything else revolves around.

Read the full article at KMUN

OREGON: Oregon commission rejects Dungeness crab petition

February 23, 2026 — The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) rejected a petition filed by conservation NGOs seeking new rules to reduce the risk of whale entanglements in Dungeness crab fishing gear, opting instead to move forward with its own ongoing rulemaking process.

“We remain fully committed to protecting whales and other marine life while supporting a sustainable, community‑based crab fishery,” the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission said in a social media post after the vote. “Over the past several years, Oregon’s crab fleet, [Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife] staff, and the Commission have already implemented a series of conservation measures and adaptive, late‑season rules to reduce entanglement risk, and that work will continue.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Petition urges more protections for whales in Dungeness crab fisheries

December 17, 2025 — Four conservation groups have petitioned the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission to strengthen risk reduction measures to prevent whale entanglement during the state’s Dungeness crab fishery.

The petition filed on Dec. 11 in Salem, Oregon, also calls for creating a pathway for authorization of safer pop-up fishing gear and establishing a process for timely public reporting of marine mammal or sea turtle entanglements in Oregon Commercial Dungeness crab fishing gear.

Four humpback whales were confirmed to have been entangled in 2025 in Oregon commercial Dungeness crab fishing gear, including one that beached and had to be euthanized.

Petition signers included the Center for Biological Diversity, Oceana, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the American Cetacean Society. 

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

OREGON: Kitz for the kill: Ousted gov. back to fight gillnets

October 26, 2018 — Oregon’s former Gov. John Kitzhaber apparently loves to hate Columbia River commercial fishing.

In 2012, the Coastal Conservation Association successfully wooed Kitzhaber, convincing him propose that the state ban salmon gillnetters from the main stem of the Columbia River with the hopes that despite years of testing to the contrary, they would miraculously find seine nets to be more selective than gillnets in taking wild salmon (as opposed to hatchery salmon).

Before he resigned from office in 2015 (an investigation led to citations from the Oregon Ethics Commission for using his office for personal gain and failure to disclose potential conflicts of interest), Kitzhaber championed a ban and struck a deal in 2013 with the joint commission that has managed the river with Washington’s fisheries counterparts for 100 years.

In 2017, the Oregon Fish & Wildlife Commission threatened to withdraw from the joint agreement but ultimately compromised to bring the states back into co-management.

Five years after the 2013 agreement, the joint commission is conducting a comprehensive review, and Oregon officials are threatening again to make a (gasp!) data-based decision to allow the use of gillnets on the main stem of the Columbia River.

Enter Kitzhaber: drumming up support for his ill-advised and poorly implemented plan of old with PSAs on gillnetskill.com.

The flip side of the Kitzhaber deal — as is often the case with CCA plans — was to transition the commercial quota to the recreational fleet. The result was a high mortality rate among the fish they had hoped to conserve by reallocating those “protected” fish to the sport sector. Imagine that!

Data gathered over several years indicate that gillnets do not have the effect on fish that advocates of the Kitzhaber plan estimated, or that other types of gear were more selective.

Yet here we are again, dodging the mudslingers in another fish fight. Science is on our side, but the lobbying dollars may not be.

This story originally appeared on National Fisherman, it is republished herewith permission.

Pacific Council Finalizes Salmon Recommendations

April 19, 2016 — The Pacific Fishery Management Council finalized their recommendation for ocean salmon seasons on Thursday, April 14. Draft copies of the adopted seasons can be viewed here. Seasons are not official until being signed by the Secretary of Commerce and adopted by the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission for waters from 0-3 nautical miles.

The adopted regulations reflect the very challenging issues with poor forecasts for numerous ocean salmon populations. These salmon have variously been affected by several years of extreme drought conditions in California, and followed last year by poor ocean conditions resulting from the recent El Nino event along the Pacific Coast.

The commercial troll salmon seasons North of Cape Falcon will have no coho salmon quota this year, and Chinook quotas, season length, and open periods and open period limits. From Cape Falcon to Humbug Mt. the Chinook seasons will have a number of closures throughout the season, reduced weekly landing limits during the fall period, and limited to fishing only in nearshore waters during October. While the area from Humbug Mt. to the OR/CA border will have reduced June and July quotas from recent years, no fishing allowed in August and September, reduced landing limits, and several additional closed periods in June and July.

Read the full release at The Fishing Wire