California Dungeness Crab Season: Ocean test results for new pop-up fishing trap could boost approval chances for mass use

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Test results are in on a technology that could help keep a popular Bay Area seafood on the table. They’re specially designed traps to fish for Dungeness crab, without endangering other marine creatures.

When we caught up with crab fisherman Brand Little a few months back, he was unloading an unusual late spring catch. Unusual, because the season has been essentially cut short for the last several years, to protect migrating whales and sea turtles from being entangled in the vertical ropes that float above the crab traps.

But this load was caught with a different kind of device, known as a rope-less or pop-up trap.

“If you’re a consumer now with this pop-up here, we’ll have crab all the way to the end of June now,” Little told us at the time.

MORE: New gear could help save California’s crab season while keeping whales safe

Little was part of a large-scale test, involving boats from San Francisco and up and down the coast. And supporters believe the results could be a turning point for the industry. Geoff Shester, Ph.D., is with the nonprofit group Oceana.

“So this was the first season that the Fish and Game Commission allowed fishermen to use their full: a number of traps and up to 50 traps on a single string, and that string would have a pop-up unit at each end,” Shester said.

To understand why that’s important, it helps to see the traps in action.

After they’re set out on the ocean floor, fisherman can relocate them using an onboard GPS tracker. The push of a button releases a pop-up float that carries the rope to the surface, letting the crew haul in the traps. Boats made 123 trips and deployed more than 25,000 traps. Oceana says the retrieval system had a 98% reliability rate.

MORE: CA expands test of traps to help delayed Bay Area crabbing season | What this means for crabbers

“And so the concern was, with that many traps on a single string, there might be some issues, you know, strings getting lost. And we were really pleased to see that not a single string of those traps was lost, after, you know, over 1,000 gear deployments. So it really just demonstrated that this gear is ready for authorization,” Shester said.

Manufacturers are submitting the data as part of a formal request to the Department of Fish and Wildlife. If it’s approved, the traps could be available as an option during spring closures. It’s what supporters see as a victory for both protecting marine creatures and keeping an iconic Bay Area industry thriving.

“And it’s really exciting because this would be the first time that this pop-up gear would be actually authorized, outside of an experimental context, anywhere on the U.S. West Coast. So this would be a really big deal for the movement of this new, well, say, fishing method that’s going to offer the opportunity to open up a lot of fishing opportunities,” Shester said.

And underscoring what’s on the line for the fleet, the nonprofit said crab boats participating in the test brought in nearly $1.5 million worth of catch during the spring season.