Crab fishermen volunteer to protect tangled whales
It’s an increasingly common site along the West Coast: a 50-foot-long whale breaking the surface of the water, hundreds of feet of fishing gear wrapped around its torso and fins, cutting into its skin and trailing behind it. If the whale is lucky, a whale entanglement team will find it in time and successfully free it from the heavy equipment. If the whale is unlucky, it may succumb to infection, become too tired to feed, or drown.
A seemingly unlikely ally has emerged in the fight to protect the whales of the West: the fishermen themselves. On Tuesday, Oct. 20, The Nature Conservancy and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration held meetings in three locations along the California coast to train fishermen to be first-responders for whale entanglement. Almost 100 crab fishermen attended the voluntary trainings – nearly a third of California’s crab fleet.
More West Coast whales were caught in fishing gear in 2014 than any other year, according to reports by NOAA. 2015 is on course to break that record, and the Dungeness crab season has yet to begin.
No one knows why reports of entanglements have increased so rapidly.
“I don’t know anyone who has ever seen a whale caught up in gear, even the old-timers,” said Capt. Geoff Bettencourt, a fourth-generation commercial crab fishermen based in Half Moon Bay who attended the training. “But now it’s all over the news. It seems rampant.”
One reason might be the dramatic increase in humpback whale populations, suggested Tom Dempsey, senior Fisheries Project Director at The Nature Conservancy. Another could be changes in whale behavior. Whales seem to be staying in California longer and spending more time close to shore, where most crabbing takes place. But this may not be the full picture.
According to Dempsey, there’s not a lot of data to work with. It’s unclear what types of gear are most likely to harm whales, and the areas with the most reports might not represent where the whales are being entangled.
Dempsey hopes the fishermen can help shed some light on the mystery. “Nearly 100 fishermen participated in our training. Collectively, they log thousands of sea days annually.”
Not only will crab fishermen help researchers understand where and how the whales are being injured, they can help whale entanglement teams locate and rescue whales, acting as front-line triage. At the training, fishermen were taught to document and evaluate the condition of entangled whales, and taught to correctly report their locations to rescue teams.
If the pilot program is a success, Dempsey hopes to hold more trainings. Eventually, fishermen may be taught to tag entangled whales with satellite and telemetry transmitters. This would help entanglement networks locate and rescue whales more easily.
Dempsey said the response from fishermen has been overwhelming. “Usually on sensitive issues like this, everyone retreats to their different sides and there isn’t a lot of collaboration. This has been the opposite. The industry has stepped forward and really wants to be a part of the solution.”
Bettencourt wasn’t surprised by the fishing industry’s response. “People think that all a fisherman cares about is catching fish, and that’s the farthest thing from the truth. If we mess up the ocean, our families suffer. We lose our livelihood. We lose everything. We want to see it healthy more than anyone.”
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