Bay Area Dungeness crab fishermen stoic despite financial hardship
PRINCETON-BY-THE-SEA — This was supposed to be the winter Braeden Breton finally realized his dream of running his own crab fishing boat. After putting down $7,500 in April toward a commercial permit, he was counting on earning enough money as a deckhand this fall to pay off the rest and begin setting his own traps after the new year.
Now the indefinite postponement of the commercial Dungeness crab season has thrown that plan into disarray. Like hundreds of other fishermen in the Bay Area, Breton finds himself scrambling to pay the bills.
Breton, of El Granada, and a partner must make monthly payments on the $20,000 they still owe for the permit. He may head north this month in the hope of finding work on a boat in Oregon, where the Dungeness crab season is tentatively slated to open Dec. 1 on the northern half of the coast.
“It’s hard on everyone around me, and it’s hard on me as well,” Breton, 23, said of the delay. “I have to keep up with my payments or I’ll lose my permit.”
More than a week after the California Department of Fish and Wildlife shut down the commercial season because of high levels of neurotoxins in the crab, the outlook for California fishermen is as murky as the ocean depths where the prized crustaceans scuttle and scavenge.
All eyes are on the state Department of Public Health, which will release the latest results this week of tests showing how much domoic acid, a naturally occurring toxin caused by a type of microscopic algae called pseudo-nitzschia, remains in the crab. When consumed by humans, shellfish contaminated by domoic acid can cause gastrointestinal illness or, in rare cases, death.
The closure is a tough break for an industry that brought fishermen nearly $67 million last year, as well as for restaurants and markets that sell the delicacy. Consumers will almost certainly miss out on fresh local crab for Thanksgiving, though crab from Oregon and Washington, where domoic acid levels right now are lower, should be available for the winter holidays.
Some fishermen at Pillar Point Harbor near Half Moon Bay are holding out hope that the season could open in time for the lucrative Christmas market, but many worry the delay could continue well into the new year. Experts say domoic acid can linger for months in bottom-dwelling creatures and ocean sediment.
The pier at Pillar Point Harbor, usually bustling this time of year with dozens of boat operators and crew members rigging their vessels, has been quiet. Most of the deckhands who would normally be here either scattered in search of work or never came in the first place.
For now, fishermen are keeping themselves busy catching up on boat maintenance. But many will eventually need to find other work. Some will pursue construction jobs as far away as Sacramento.
Don Marshall, a leader of the young generation of Pillar Point fishermen, was working Wednesday on the hydraulic system of a boat he bought for $50,000 in July, a purchase he now regrets. He offered a visitor his left hand, protecting his right, which he broke this summer while salmon trolling. Instead of resting to let the break heal, Marshall kept fishing. He needed the money.
But even this year’s commercial chinook salmon season was poor — largely because California’s historic drought has lowered water levels in the rivers where the fish spawn and hatch. Preliminary figures from Fish and Wildlife show just 114,000 salmon were caught in California, down roughly 25 percent from 2014. And the fish were small at an average of 10.5 pounds, about 3 pounds lighter than the average over the past five years, according to Jennifer Simon, one of the agency’s environmental scientists.
The lackluster salmon fishing will exacerbate the financial toll of the crab closure. And the crab season may not be so great once it opens. Fishermen will likely contend with El Niño storms and prices that are undercut by a lack of holiday demand.
“It’s probably going to be the hardest winter we’ve ever seen,” said Marshall, who at 33 is president of the California Small Boat Trollers Association.
Results from the most recent round of tests, conducted around the end of October, show domoic acid levels were much higher in Humboldt and Del Norte counties than along the Central Coast, an encouraging sign for fishermen in San Francisco, Half Moon Bay, Moss Landing and Monterey.
But a 1997 laboratory study suggested it takes three weeks or more from the point crabs are exposed to domoic acid for the chemical to leave their systems. Many crabs off the California coast are likely still eating snails and other food sources that are contaminated.
Domoic acid is always present in the food web, but at safe amounts, scientists say. This year’s extraordinary levels of the biotoxin were caused by an unusually vast and persistent algal bloom, which was bolstered by record-breaking high temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.
Harmful algal blooms are on the rise around the globe, a phenomenon that could be linked to climate change, said Raphael Kudela, a phytoplankton ecologist at UC Santa Cruz.
Water samples show this year’s bloom has died off along the California coast, though it may still lurk farther out to sea, Kudela said. And the outlook for 2016 is poor.
“We don’t have a crystal ball,” said Kudela, “but our best guess is next year we’ll see another toxic bloom, and it may be as big as this year’s.”
And, while it’s too early to say for sure, the 2016 salmon season may not be so great, either.
“We’re not anticipating a high abundance of fish available for harvest,” said Simon, of Fish and Wildlife.
Despite the gloom, fishermen at Pillar Point are confident in their ability to roll with Mother Nature’s punches. Those jabs and hooks may come in faster, less predictable combinations as the climate grows hotter.
Breton, who began working as a deckhand when he was 16, has no plans to stop fishing.
“This is kind of what I was raised into,” Breton said, “so I don’t see myself doing anything else. You adapt.”
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