The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced the second delay to the start of the 2023-2024 California commercial Dungeness crab fishing season to protect whales and due to poor crab meat quality. The continued delay off the central and southern coasts is based on a combination of excessive humpback whale entanglements in California Dungeness crab gear over the last three years and high numbers of recent humpback whale sightings and presence of endangered blue whales in those regions according to CDFW’s Risk Assessment and Mitigation Program criteria. Poor crab meat quality test results are the cause for delay of the commercial season in northern California’s Fishing Zones 1 and 2. The recreational fishery opened on November 4 with hoop nets, but recreational traps are prohibited in Zones 1, 2, and 4 due to increased concentrations of humpback and blue whales.According to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), roughly 75 percent of reported whale entanglements are fatal as whales can drag the heavy fishing gear for months, hindering their ability to dive and feed. This can result in malnutrition, starvation, infection to damaged flukes or tails and even severed appendages and drowning.According to CDFW, there have been 16 confirmed whale entanglements — including humpback whales and gray whales — reported off California this year, four of which were confirmed in California commercial Dungeness crab gear.This includes a recent sighting of another humpback whale reported entangled on November 11 in Monterey Bay and confirmed to be in California commercial Dungeness crab gear. To date, at least 24 whales have been confirmed entangled off the West Coast in 2023. #placement_573654_0_i{width:100%;max-width:550px;margin:0 auto;}var rnd = window.rnd || Math.floor(Math.random()*10e6);var pid573654 = window.pid573654 || rnd;var plc573654 = window.plc573654 || 0;var abkw = window.abkw || '';var absrc = 'https://ads.empowerlocal.co/adserve/;ID=181918;size=0x0;setID=573654;type=js;sw='+screen.width+';sh='+screen.height+';spr='+window.devicePixelRatio+';kw='+abkw+';pid='+pid573654+';place='+(plc573654++)+';rnd='+rnd+';click=CLICK_MACRO_PLACEHOLDER';var _absrc = absrc.split("type=js"); absrc = _absrc[0] + 'type=js;referrer=' + encodeURIComponent(document.location.href) + _absrc[1];document.write('');The population of humpback whales that breeds in Central American/Southern Mexico — one of two humpback populations that migrates to feed off the California coast — is endangered with extinction under the federal Endangered Species Act. According to NMFS, these humpbacks are being seriously injured or killed at a rate of four times their “Potential Biological Removal,” which is the legal threshold above which there are population-level impacts that impede recovery of the species in accordance with the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act. Humpback whales are also being caught by California commercial Dungeness crab gear in numbers that greatly exceed a three-year average impact score as defined in California’s Risk Assessment Mitigation Program for the fishery that triggers necessary management action. Due to the number of entanglements, NMFS is proposing to upgrade the California commercial Dungeness crab fishery to a Category I fishery— a designation reserved for fisheries that have a frequent likelihood of seriously injuring or killing marine mammals. The federal agency is also considering including the Dungeness crab fishery in the scope of a new “Take Reduction Team” that would develop a plan to swiftly reduce serious injury and death of whales from entanglement as required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The next assessment to determine the risk of whale entanglements and determine whether fishing zones will open is scheduled for around December 7. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('ad-1515727'); });