The long-awaited California Dungeness crab season can finally begin.
After weeks of negotiations, an agreement was reached on the price that seafood processors will pay for shipping the West Coast delicacy’s crab fleets.
“We are pleased to announce that local fishermen will be in the water on Monday, 11/01/21, bringing the delicious and sweet Dungeness crab by the end of the week,” announced the Half Moon Bay Seafood Marketing Association on Saturday.
The specific price was not disclosed by the negotiating parties, but with wholesalers initially offering to pay in the range of $ 2 per pound and fishermen opposing prices in the range of $ 3, the deal is reportedly a high number of $ 2.
Last year, the wholesale price was set at $ 3 a pound. The retail price range for the Dungeness crab can range from $ 7 to $ 20 per pound, depending on the market.
According to the Half Moon Bay group, a coordinated agreement with fishermen in San Francisco and Bodega Bay and other fleets along the coast will allow the first crab pots to be set up at 8 am on Monday and transported at 8 am on Wednesday market. The markets were supposed to have crab on Friday or Saturday.
Traditionally, the Bay Area crab commercial season begins on November 15th. But the California Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, in consultation with crab fishermen, delayed this by more than a month to prevent migrant whales from getting caught in fishing lines.
Once the whales were safe on their way south, the state defined December 23 as the season opener. Then price negotiations began. Both sides were hard hit economically by pandemic restrictions on restaurants and markets; Adding to the challenges, there was a major fire last May at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.
Since 2015, there have been delays in all but one of Dungeness’s commercial seasons.
One toxin, domoic acid, which can make anyone who eats the infected crab sick, has destroyed the 2015-2016 commercial season in Northern California and has caused delays in other years.
In 2018, recreational crabs had to postpone fishing, but the commercial season started without a hitch.
In 2019, as well as in 2020, the danger of the fishing line to whales resulted in a crab delay of several weeks.