Why holiday crab tradition in California faces another disrupted season

For many Californians, crab bakes, crab cakes and crab feeds are traditional holiday fare.

But the need to protect humpback whales in California’s coastal waters, combined with widespread domoic acid contamination along the northern coast, has once again put the brakes on the Dungeness commercial fishery and parts of the recreational fishery this fall.

Consuming shellfish contaminated with domoic acid can cause illness and death.

Last week, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced it was delaying the opening of commercial crab fishing statewide until Jan. 1. The season will end July 31. It had been scheduled to start Nov. 1.

New state regulations require the closure of the fishery if three or more humpback whales are confirmed to have been entangled in crab gear during the calendar year. In 2025, four whales have been entangled in commercial Dungeness crab fishery ropes and lines. An additional four humpbacks have been snared in gear that officials suspected but could not confirm was for crab fishing.

Dungeness crabs are generally caught in coastal waters north of San Francisco.

In 2024, a record number of whales in U.S. waters were caught in fishing gear, with California taking the top spot, accounting for roughly 25% of the 95 confirmed incidents.

Entanglements are just one of many threats facing whales worldwide. Earlier this year, 21 gray whales died in San Francisco Bay Area waters, mostly after getting struck by ships. The animals are increasingly stressed from changes in food availability, shipping traffic, noise pollution, waste discharge, disease and plastic debris, and their ability to avoid and survive these impediments is diminishing.

A delay “is the best course of action for the fishery and the whales,” said Geoff Shester, Oceana’s California Campaign director and senior scientist. “The risk that more endangered whales could become entangled in crab gear remains high, so we must redouble our efforts now.”

He said environmentalists and others are hopeful that crab fishers will adapt. New equipment, such as pop-up gear — which uses remote-controlled pop-up balloon devices to bring cages to the surface, rather than hauling them in with lines — appears to be on track for state approval.

“Another year of a delayed commercial Dungeness crab season is incredibly difficult for our fleet and port communities,” Lisa Damrosch, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Assns., said in a joint statement with the Department of Fish and Wildlife. “However, given the current risk assessment process, the commercial fleet supported this outcome as the most practical path forward.”

Recreational crab fishing is set to open on Nov. 1 in most areas. Along the stretch of coast from Gualala to Crescent City, where domoic acid is widespread, the crab fishery will be closed until state health authorities determine that domoic acid no longer is a threat to public health. South of Gualala 100 miles to Point Reyes, health officials have issued an advisory for crabs.

This is the sixth year in a row that the fishery has been delayed as a result of entanglement concerns, said Ryan Bartling, a scientist with the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife. In prior years, before the numerical threshold, the delay was a judgment call.