Confessions of Whale-loving Crab Eater
As crab season opens in California, I’m troubled by rising whale entanglements
As winter approaches and the days grow short, my bright spot in the gathering darkness has always been California’s opening of Dungeness crab season. Every November, fishing boats piled high with huge crab traps leave Northern California ports and I hungrily anticipate their return, eager to crack my first claw.
But that pure epicurean passion has gotten more complicated in recent years. For those us who strive to be ethical eaters, there’s a troubling trend in this world-renowned, relatively sustainable fishery. And it’s steadily become a whale of a problem that can no longer be ignored.
“I love crab. I love ritualistically cracking each red-shelled appendage of a fresh, local Dungeness crab and extracting its sweet white meat, slowly savoring every last succulent morsel,” I wrote in a guest editorial for a Bay Area newspaper in August 2015.
“Crabs and whales: A love story and call to action” was an ode to my favorite food and call for California to address the sharply rising number of whales that are getting tangled up in crab and other fishing gear. Since then, the problem has gotten much worse, yet little has changed on the water or in the minefield of heavy vertical ropes underneath.
Shortly after I started working for the Center for Biological Diversity almost three years ago, we obtained federal records showing a steep increase in West Coast whale entanglements. My editorial was part of our effort to publicize the problem as we started working on solutions with state and federal officials, crabbers and other environmental groups.
There were 30 reported whale entanglements in 2014, the most recent figures available at the time, a big jump from the annual average of less than 10 over the previous decade. That number would more than double to 62 in 2015 and then rise to 71 last year. Of the 29 cases where gear was identified in 2016, 22 were commercial Dungeness crab lines (entangling 19 humpbacks, two blue whales and an orca — as well as an endangered leatherback sea turtle).
I love crab, but I also love whales. After being hunted nearly to extinction, we saved the whales with an international ban on commercial whaling and conservation efforts facilitated by the Endangered Species Act. Humans recognized the importance of whales to healthy oceans and we did something about it.
The annual migration of humpbacks and other whales down the West Coast is a testament to humanity’s ability to correct our mistakes and protect the planet’s rich biodiversity. Whales are beautiful, magnificent creatures that fill me with awe when I see then spout or breach. Just knowing they’re out there, even when I can’t see them, somehow makes me feel like we’re a little less doomed.
Whales can get tangled in fishing gear while they migrate, socialize or search for food. The heavy ropes can wrap around their tails or fins — or get caught in their mouths as they scoop up krill or anchovies. Looped around a tail or fluke, the ropes tighten as they drag the load — a pronounced problem with these heavy crab traps — cutting into their flesh, sapping their strength, and often causing permanent injuries or death.
Crabbers don’t want to kill or injure whales. But as the rising entanglement numbers attest, their expressions of concern and good intentions haven’t been enough.
Last June, when a new whale entanglement was being reported almost every day in Monterey Bay, a voluntary advisory asking crabbers to avoid the area was largely ignored. In such a competitive fishery, where whales can congregate in the same biologically rich areas where the crabs flourish, voluntary measures aren’t good enough.
That’s why we at the Center last month were forced to finally sue the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which permits the fishery. It needs to save the whales by creating better rules for all crabbers to follow. That can include temporarily closing areas where whales are congregating and getting entangled or new standards for reducing slack line in the water.
Officials need to do something. Every entanglement of an endangered humpback whale, blue whale, or leatherback sea turtle violates federal law. But officials shouldn’t wait for the courts to intervene — the department should act now.
This problem isn’t going away. As whale populations recover and California’s coastal waters grow steadily warmer, only smart management of this and other local fisheries is going to solve the problem.
Californians shouldn’t be forced to choose between eating crab and eating ethically. And I don’t want to enter another crab season haunted by dark visions of hogtied whales, fighting for their lives, just so I can include crab in my Thanksgiving feast.
Steven T. Jones is a native Californian and longtime journalist for California newspapers who now works for the Center for Biological Diversity. California’s commercial Dungeness crab season is scheduled to open Nov. 15 south of Mendocino County and Dec. 1 north to the Oregon border.
