Whale-safe crab fishing season a success

Humpback whales travel for thousands of miles each year between their feeding grounds in the North Pacific and their calving grounds off the coast of Mexico and Central America. For many years, this journey was fraught with the risk of entanglement in fishing gear used to catch crabs and lobsters. But thanks to an ongoing test of new, whale-safe fishing gear, this annual risk may soon be a risk of the past.

What is entanglement? When a whale swims into the vertical rope connecting a crab or lobster pot to a bouy above, the whale can panic and get tangled up in the gear. While some whales may eventually free themselves, those that don’t can drown or die from exhaustion. Even those who break free can suffer from infections and use up their energy reserves, making them less likely to reproduce.

This is a risk for a lot of whales, but for the past decade, humpback whales, gray whales and other “large whales” on the west coast have been getting entangled at much higher rates than they had been in the past. So California’s wildlife managers and fishermen have been looking for ways to reduce the risk posed by California’s crab fisheries to whales while still keeping fishermen in the water.

Enter ropeless gear: this gear eliminates the vertical rope connecting the crab pot to a bouy sitting at the surface. Instead, when fishermen are ready to bring in their catch, they’ll locate the pot and inflate a bouy attached to the pots at the bottom with the help of an acoustic signal. By eliminating any rope that is left in the water, this gear all but eliminates the risk of entanglement for whales.

This gear has been in testing in California for a few years and is letting crabbers get back out on the water even in seasons where whales are around. And the results from this year’s tests are promising: 12 California fishermen brought in $1.4 million worth of Dungeness crabs during a season where, before the ropeless gear trials, they would have had to stay home.

While ropeless, aka pop-up, gear is not yet permitted for fishermen outside these state-led trials, this successful season has fisheries managers saying that approving the gear for broader use may not be far off.

Having this whale-safe gear ready to use when whales are in town would be a huge step forward, and will help us keep these gentle giants off our coast–and crabs on our plate–for years to come.