Record Number Of Whales Tangled In Buoys Prompts Shorter Crab Season
Written by 991KBU on March 27, 2019
We don’t know what happened to that grey whale spotted last weekend up the coast from Malibu … with a buoy line wrapped around it.
At last word from Channel Island Harbor … the coast guard and federal wildlife officials were trying to come up with a plan to cut the lines.
The buoy may have come from a crab pot … placed by fishermen further up the coast.
Or a lobster pot down here.
Word comes today that the state will end crab season three months earlier than usual from now on … as it settles a lawsuit brought by environmentalists.
The California Department of Fish and wildlife has settled a lawsuit with the Center for biological diversity of Tucson.
As a result … California crab fisheries will close for the season in April.
That’s when the largest amount of whales feed off the state’s coast.
as part of an effort to keep Dungeness crab fishery gear from killing protected whales, officials announced Tuesday.
The center sued the state agency in 2017 … claiming the crab buoys were liable for a surge in entanglement of endangered whales and sea turtles.
Dungeness crab season will now close April 1st in the Monterey Bay area and along the Sonoma and Mendocino counties line.
The number of humpbacks, blue and other endangered or threatened species of whale getting stuck in fishing gear is breaking records.
Experts say climate change is attracting the whales closer to shore — and fishing gear — in their search for food.
