Bad
harvest, low demand threaten Pacific fishermen
|
(AP)
Commercial fisherman Duncan MacLean holds up two crabs
he just caught from his boat in Half Moon... |
By TERENCE CHEA
HALF
MOON BAY, Calif. (AP) - An unusually weak Dungeness crab harvest
is compounding the financial woes of West Coast fishermen who
were already struggling with depressed consumer demand and the
unprecedented collapse of the Pacific chinook salmon fishery.
Commercial
fishermen in California, Oregon and Washington are struggling
to stay afloat financially. They say the downturn could force
fishermen who depend heavily on crab and salmon to leave the
shrinking ranks of the region's fishing fleet.
"With this crab season being slim at best, it's going to
be pretty hard to make it through to the next one," said
58-year-old Duncan MacLean, a commercial fisherman since 1972.
"I would suspect there are going to be lots of people falling
by the wayside."
The
Dungeness season that began in mid-November is shaping up to
be one of the least productive in years. In Half Moon Bay, about
25 miles south of San Francisco, MacLean and other crabbers
are not doing much fishing because the catch is so poor and
prices offered by seafood processors are so low.
"It's
disappointing to everybody because you want to support your
family," said 45-year-old Steve Mills. "Even though
we're not catching crab, the bills still pile up."
Last spring, federal regulators for the first time canceled
the West Coast's commercial salmon season after a near-record
low number of chinook returned to spawn in the rivers of California's
Central Valley. Next year's season also could be called off
to allow salmon populations to rebound.
Congress
approved $100 million in federal disaster relief to help trollers
and businesses that depend on West Coast salmon fishing. Many
fishermen say they would be hurting even more without the aid,
but they still had been counting on a robust Dungeness season.
Scientists
attribute the weak crab harvest to increased fishing earlier
this year, ocean conditions that disrupted the marine food chain
and the natural cycle of crab populations, which tend to peak
every seven to 10 years.
This
season's California catch is expected to fall below the 8 million
pounds caught last year, which was down from 25 million pounds
four years ago, according to the state Department of Fish and
Game.
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(AP)
Commercial fisherman Duncan MacLean works on his crabbing
nets on his boat in Half Moon Bay,... |
"I'd
characterize it as near the bottom of the natural cycle,"
said Peter Kalvass, a state biologist in Fort Bragg who expects
the harvest to rebound in a couple of years, based on the large
number of young crabs found in fishermen's traps.
In
most years, low supply means higher prices, but this year crab
fishermen are getting paid less than they got in more abundant
years.
"The
economy is in the toilet, and people that normally buy crabs
are not buying the crabs," said Dale Beasley, a fisherman
in Ilwaco, Wash., who heads the Columbia River Crab Fishermen's
Association.
The
lack of locally caught chinook, or "king," salmon
and the disappointing crab harvest is a loss not just for fishermen
but for businesses that draw tourists based on their communities'
ties to the ocean.
"Our
preference would be to sell as much local seafood as possible,
and that's becoming increasingly difficult now," said Paul
Shenkman, who owns Sam's Chowder House. "A lot of our guests
want local fish, and we can't give it to them."
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(AP)
Commercial fisherman Duncan MacLean checks out a crab
from a small haul of crabs he had just caught... |
Fishermen
wonder whether they can afford to keep fishing for a living.
San Francisco fisherman John Mellor said he did not receive
any federal aid and had been banking on a decent crab harvest
to pay for his taxes, boat insurance and daughter's braces.
"I have to come up with money to pay these big bills,"
Mellor said.
To get by, fishermen plan to catch herring, squid, sardine,
rockfish and albacore tuna, but they say fishing for those species
is not as lucrative.
The
salmon fishing ban and poor crab harvest could force more commercial
fishermen to leave the business at a time when the Pacific Coast
fleet is aging and shrinking amid increasing regulation, declining
fisheries and the expansion of farmed fish.
Over the past three decades, membership in the Pacific Coast
Federation of Fishermen's Associations has dropped from about
4,500 to 1,000 members, said executive director Zeke Grader.
The average age of the group's members has risen from the mid
30s to the late 50s as few young people choose to fish for a
living.
"People
don't think there's a future in it," Grader said.