3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2018
Rule changes: Recommendations will go to commission in April
Continued from Page 1A
behind. They want to keep
areas open when possible by
modifying how crabs are pro-
cessed and sold even when
domoic acid levels are high.
“Our ultimate goal for Ore-
gon is that if there’s a pub-
lic safety issue, we deal with
that first,” Braby said. “But the
economic viability of the fish-
ery and the economic support
of coastal communities that
harvest that crab is right up
there as our second goal. Being
able to do that as much as we
possibly can, given we’ve
taken care of our first goal, is
to everybody’s benefit.”
Domoic acid can accu-
mulate in a crab’s guts, but
remove the guts and the crab
meat is still good. Commercial
crab caught from Cape Blanco
to the Oregon-California bor-
der has been under an eviscera-
tion order since mid-February.
Whole or live crab are not on
the menu there for now.
The West Coast as a whole
has struggled with how to
maintain valuable commercial
fisheries in the face of massive
blooms of marine toxins like
domoic acid. That particular
toxin can cause serious illness
if consumed. Underweight
crabs, stalled price negotia-
tions and bad weather pushed
back the start of this crab sea-
son, but elevated levels of
domoic acid delayed the start
of Oregon’s last two Dunge-
ness seasons.
“Harmful algal blooms are
happening more frequently
and the biotoxins from those
blooms are kind of percolating
through crab, through razor
clams, through other species
in ways that aren’t always pre-
dictable,” Braby said.
Fishery managers have
needed more flexibility in
addressing such issues, she
added.
The recommendations that
will go to the commission in
April were developed by an
advisory group whose mem-
bers included state biologists
and fishery managers, as well
as people involved in the fish-
ing industry.
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Nate Kelly and Troy Constantine work to prepare the Swell Rider for the crab season.
Landings
Crabbers landed just under
16.5 million pounds of crab in
Oregon as of mid-February —
about what fishermen landed in
the opening weeks of the prior
season, according to the state.
Washington state fishermen are
behind on landings compared
to last season, said Dan Ayres,
coastal shellfish manager for
the Washington Department
of Fish and Wildlife. Landings
for the state’s nontribal coastal
crab fishery stood at 5.5 million
pounds four weeks into the sea-
son — only about 60 percent of
the total catch during the previ-
ous season’s first weeks.
“It was a late start, then we
had bad weather and crab qual-
ity issues, then we had price
issues — it’s been a long win-
ter,” Dean Antich, vice present
of South Bend Products, told
the Chinook Observer.
Oregon and Washington’s
commercial Dungeness fish-
eries traditionally open in
December and the bulk of the
crab is often caught in the first
eight weeks of the season. Last
season, Oregon fishermen saw
a record ex-vessel value of
$62.7 million and total land-
ings of 20.4 million pounds,
well above the 10-year average
of 16 million pounds.
The prices fishermen
receive for their catch have
dropped since the late Janu-
ary opener. Fishermen and pro-
cessors had agreed to around
$2.75 per pound. Fishermen
are now receiving around
$2.50 per pound.
The toxin levels down south
are the remnants of a bloom
that happened in 2017. For
now, there are no toxin issues
farther north affecting crab. In
the coming months, the state
will begin looking at water
samples and occurrences of the
algae that produce the blooms
that result in biotoxins like
domoic acid. Those results will
“start to tell us about what will
happen in 2018,” Braby said.
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