with the annual Dungeness crab harvest.Coos Bay, OR – Although the season officially closed six weeks ago, some Dungeness crab fishermen along the Oregon Coast will spend a day at sea this week ‘harvesting’ something other than the recently designated official ‘State Crustacean.’
Weather permitting, crabbers in Astoria, Winchester Bay, Charleston, Port Orford and Brookings will go out on the ocean to locate, retrieve and bring in as many stray, missed and otherwise ‘left behind’ crab pots from this year’s fishery in an attempt to help solve the ‘derelict gear’ problem associated with the annual Dungeness crab harvest.
Dubbed ‘Operation CRABPOT (Clearing Refuse And Building a Pristine Ocean for Tomorrow) and sponsored by the industry-funded Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission (ODCC), the all-volunteer effort is being viewed as a ‘pilot project’ for what will hopefully become an annual fleet-wide event held each summer when the good weather makes gathering up lost crab gear much easier.
“We were inspired by SOLV’s tremendously successful beach clean-up activity along the Oregon coastline.” said ODCC Executive Director, Nick Furman. “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t do our part to make the near-shore waters as debris-free as our public beaches. It’s the responsible thing to do.”
Every crab season, pots are lost, stuck or abandoned along the Oregon coast as a result of harsh winter storms, strong currents, entanglement with floating debris or encounters with other vessels which unintentionally cut off the surface buoys and render the pots irretrievable. Although conservation-minded gear regulations are designed to eliminate ‘ghost fishing’ in these lost pots, they still cause significant headaches for other fishermen when snagged on salmon trolling gear or entangled in trawl nets, and contribute to the growing problem of marine debris.
Crab gear brought to the dock during this week’s clean-up will be returned to its rightful owner, if identifiable, or recycled. Fishermen participating in Operation CRABPOT are being paid a small ‘stipend’ to cover fuel costs thanks to a donation from the Department of State Lands (DSL), the agency with jurisdictional responsibility for much of the coastal crab fishing grounds. ODFW is set to begin a large-scale NOAA-funded ‘derelict fishing gear’ recovery project in early October. Link to Video