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Crabbing has long been an important part of the fisheries of the west coast. From the Southern California bight to the Aleutian Islands, crab has supplemented many fishermen’s incomes and has been the sole support for a few. Changes in management of the fishery, however, are threatening to radically alter that fishery - from Dungeness off Central California to the king, tanner and snow crab fisheries in the Bering Sea.
Under the guise of advancing safety and profitability, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, with help from a Congressional rider by U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, has put the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands (BSAI) crab fisheries under an individual fisheries quota (IFQ) system that took effect this year. But the North Pacific Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), as Fishermen’s News readers know, didn’t leave it at that in their “rationalization” scheme, but included in it processor quotas (IPQs) as well.
On the other end of the U.S. west coast, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation aimed at curbing effort in that state’s Dungeness crab fishery. The bill, AB 749, would have extended California’s decade-old Dungeness vessel limited entry law, placed the Central California fishery under a two-year trial trap limit program, and given the state’s Fish & Game Commission authority to manage the fishery. The veto puts California’s crab fishery at risk of total chaos.
If there is some sanity along the coast, it may be in Oregon, where that state’s Fish & Wildlife Commission voted to restrict the 200-mile zone offshore to Oregon crab permit holders only. The Commission’s vote to approve what is being called “LE 200” was the same day as the Schwarzenegger veto.
To get a better understanding of what is taking place and the possible implications, let’s quickly recap what has happened.
The BSAI crab “rationalization” program has been under development for the past few years and was approved by the North Pacific Council in 2004. It is intended to make the fishery safer by “ending the race for crab” and make it more profitable in light of falling revenues as a result of fewer crab. It took effect this year and was in place in time for the beginning of the red king crab season opening October 15th.
The BSAI fishery is perhaps one of the most dangerous fisheries in a dangerous business as vessels race to catch the overall quotas under often harrowing sea conditions. We don’t have to tell most fishermen about the hazards of this fishery – some have experienced it first-hand, others have heard enough about it that they want nothing to do with it. The reality television series “Deadly Catch” sought to capture the feel of the fishery and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently ran a special report on “the last derby-style crab-fishing season on the Bering Sea” which can be found at: http://www.seattlepi.com/specials/crabfishing.
Coupled with the dangers of the fishery have been declining revenues. In the 1990’s, ex-vessel prices for the catch of king and snow crab brought in up to $250 million annually; last year the figure was around $150 million and many vessel owners complained they were just breaking even. The declining crab population has been variously blamed on natural conditions; some have even attributed the BSAI crab decline to the expansion of bottom trawling. However, this year the total allowable catch of red king crab will be increased to 18.2 million pounds, up from 15.2 million last year, and the snow crab catch is set at 37.2 million pounds, about double last year.
Responding to the problem of a dangerous fishery with dwindling revenues, the North Pacific Council appointed a 14-member committee made up of processors, vessel owners and one fisherman to craft a crab plan. Here’s where things began going amok, at least from the standpoint of skippers and crew. The committee submitted its plan to the Council in 2002. The Council then took the recommendations and adopted a plan for an IFQ fishery. Vessel owners were given 97 percent of the total harvester quota to be divided among themselves based on their vessels’ catch histories. Three (3) percent of the quota was allocated to skippers; crew members were given nothing (the committee that drafted the plan had recommended allocating up to 20 percent of the quota to captains and crew).
Addressing protests from processors who felt giving quotas solely to the harvesting sector would drive up the price of crab and could result in “stranded capital” (processing plants with no product) the North Pacific Council devised a plan to give processors quotas as well. To answer the “stranded capital” issue, and a potential problem of small communities that traditionally relied on the fishery, having no product if vessel owners sought out markets elsewhere paying higher prices, the Council, which includes processor representatives, decided that 90 percent of the total catch could be sold only to those companies holding PQS [Processor Quota Shares].
Coupled with all of this, the North Pacific’s plan included provisions for permit stacking, calling it “cooperatives.” Thus, vessel owners could keep receiving revenue from the fishery if they were granted quota initially without even having to own a boat thereafter. This ends up draining capital from the fishery – capital that could have been used for upgrading vessels (safety equipment, etc.) and crew shares. Most captains and crew, meanwhile, are left on the beach with nothing, even though they were the ones who risked their lives to make the profits for the vessel owners.
The plan, even though adopted unanimously by the North Pacific Council, was not without controversy. Most crab fishermen hated it, feeling they had been betrayed. Furthermore, when it was sent to Washington, D.C. for approval by the Secretary of Commerce, the Justice Department weighed in raising serious concerns with the processor quota provisions violating the nation’s anti-trust laws. That’s when Senator Stevens stepped in, putting a rider on an appropriations bill (no Congressional hearings were ever held on the BSAI crab plan or its implications) mandating approval by the Department of Commerce (NMFS’s parent agency). The plan, obviously, was approved.
“Rationalization” -- NMFS and plan proponents’ term for the economic cannibalization of the crab fishery -- has affected communities from Seattle to Halibut Cove. Last year 252 boats participated in the king crab fishery. For this season’s opener in October, only 103 boats were registered and fewer of those are expected to participate. Even fewer boats are expected to participate in the future as their owners enter “cooperatives.” An estimated 800 crew and captain jobs have been lost with no estimates yet for losses in the shoreside support sector. Vessel prices have declined, as have crew shares for those fortunate enough to land a berth.
On the processing side, the Seattle P-I reported “Trident Seafoods’ share of the processor quota…..is a guaranteed 23.3 percent of the catch worth an estimated $184 million.” While the plan may protect the “stranded capital” of the processors, it does not protect communities that have depended on the crab catch, since a processor can close plants, transferring the quota to other locations (within the region the quota is for) or sell their quota to another processor.
Domestic processing jobs in the crab fishery may soon become a thing of the past anyway, as some major west coast seafood companies have been outsourcing fish processing jobs to China. The July 19th issue of the Agribusiness Examiner reported both Trident and Pacific Seafoods are sending west coast product to China for processing. Among the catch being outsourced from U.S. shores for processing are salmon, Pollock and crab.
The BSAI crab plan of the North Pacific Council may result in increased safety. It has certainly consolidated the wealth of the billion-dollar fishery into very few hands and left many on the dock without jobs. It has caused a reduction in crew shares and sent the price of vessels plummeting. Moreover, while the arbitration clauses for price negotiations and the vessel owner cooperatives may protect against processors being able to drive ex-vessel prices below fair market value for the crab, fishing communities are now extremely vulnerable to the loss of crab processing facilities.
California, like Oregon and Washington, enacted limited entry for vessels participating in the Dungeness crab fishery in the early 1990’s. In the 1994 legislation (the California Legislature directly manages most commercial fisheries, delegating only some authority to the Fish & Game Commission) establishing the state’s crab limited entry, the Legislature found, among other things, “that, in order to protect the Dungeness crab fishery, it is necessary to limit the number of vessels participating in that fishery to take Dungeness crab and it may be necessary to limit the quantity and capacity of the fishing gear used on each vessel to take Dungeness crab” (CA Fish & Game Code §8280(b)).
California’s law was amended the following year with some clean-up language and was extended by legislation in 2000 to April 2006, when it sunsets unless reauthorized. The legislation that was just vetoed would have reauthorized limited entry for another 7 years.
The Pacific Coast Dungeness crab fishery is managed by the “3Ss” (size, sex and season) and it appears that has resulted in a sustainable fishery. The problem is, with no caps on the total amount of effort, including boats and traps, the fishery becomes increasingly dangerous and unprofitable, the same situation that was faced in the BSAI crab fishery. Some have also raised the concern that the increasing number of traps vessels are using to stay competitive (or at least stake out some area on the crab grounds) is causing excessive handling of undersized and female crabs and will result in large scale trap losses.
In 1997, to address the issue of what many local fishermen considered excess effort in the central coast fishery (south of Point Arena) that includes the ports of Bodega Bay, San Francisco and Half Moon Bay, a bill was introduced to limit the fishery to daylight hours only for that section of the coast.
The central coast fishery opens November 15th, two weeks ahead of the rest of the coast and as a result has attracted more and more boats each year to get in a couple of weeks crabbing before the openers to the north. This is the one area of the coast that is vulnerable to “double dipping,” where boats from outside can come to fish when their home grounds are closed and then return to their home ports for their openings. This often leaves the local fleet along the central coast with little crab left to catch.
The early opening in this area, the southern part of the range of Dungeness, has been to accommodate the traditional Thanksgiving market for fresh Dungeness in the San Francisco Bay Area. Another way to have stopped the influx of boats would have been to delay the opening of this area to December 1 to match the rest of the coast, but this would have meant the loss of the Thanksgiving holiday market. The 1997 legislation, restricting the fishery to daylight hours, was carried by then-Assemblyman Dan Hauser, the author of the original crab limited entry bill; it failed passage in the last day of session that year in the Assembly, where it had been sent for concurrence, by one vote.
California’s Dungeness crab production has ranged from less than a million pounds in the 1915-1916 season to over 26 million pounds in 1976 and has been at around 20 million pounds the last two seasons, although as late as the 2001-2002 season it was down to 3.6 million pounds statewide in a fishery where production is highly cyclical. This compares to Oregon’s catch of 30 million pounds for the 2004-2005 season (the state had a low of 5.9 million for the 2000-2001 season) and Washington’s total of 23 million pounds for this past season (Tribal and non-Tribal combined).
With the addition of trawlers getting into crabbing to supplement their fishing income as a result of the increasing restrictions being placed on groundfish, there were new calls for effort limits beyond just a cap on the number of vessels (for California about 600 boats held permits, with just under 400 active in the fishery). The groundfish trawl buyback heightened the concern for effort controls when some of the fishermen who sold their vessels and permits turned around and used that money to buy inactive crab permits and new traps (ironically, to be paid for in part by a federally-imposed assessment on other crab fishermen).
With some boats coming into the central coast fishery with 1,000 traps or more in an area where 100-200 traps per boat had been the norm for years, most of the catch, even with increased crab abundance, ended up taking place in November, some in December, and was mostly over by the end of the year even though the season did not officially close until June 30th. During the 2003-2004 season production overwhelmed the processing capacity during the first few weeks. Ex-vessel prices were pushed down and some processors shut their doors with reports of some boats having to dump dead crab after waiting days to unload. The situation was even worse in November 2004, with estimates of between 10,000 and 100,000 pounds of crab being dumped, with some processors cooking dead crabs or sending them out of state for processing.
In 2003, fishermen from the three primary ports for central coast production came together and reached an agreement on trap limits. The number agreed to, after hours of meetings, was a compromise between small and large boat operators in the area for a trial two-year 250 trap limit. The number was hardly arbitrary; it was based on what most boats would operate in a normal day and just below the statewide average (based on a Sea Grant survey) of 257 traps per vessel. Keep in mind, Washington already had trap limits in place for Puget Sound and had a 300/500 trap limit for the coastal non-Tribal fishery. Oregon was also discussing trap limits.
The legislation, carried by Assemblyman Mark Leno whose district includes San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, included language to change the central coast opening date to December 1st and give the Fish & Game Commission authority to regulate the fishery. The Commission’s crab authority is limited to consideration of permits, unless it develops a full management plan for the fishery, which is not expected for a decade or more. Faced with objections from San Francisco Bay Area processors, the bill was amended to leave the opening date alone. The Leno bill passed the Legislature, over the objections of a few large processors, some of the out-of-the-area large boats, and the Department of Fish & Game, whose legislative unit sided with the large processors and vessel owners. Unfortunately, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the measure.
This year, Assemblyman Leno, at the behest of local fishermen again reintroduced legislation for a trial trap limit for the central coast. The new bill addressed the issues raised by the Governor’s veto message – some of those issues, however, were clearly erroneous, leading many to conclude that whoever wrote his message (probably Fish & Game’s legislative unit) had not even read the 2004 bill. In March, the Fish & Game Commission held a hearing on trap limits, pursuant to the Governor’s recommendation, even though they had no authority to implement limits. Leno’s bill, AB 749, also included language to reauthorize the crab limited entry program.
AB 749 was co-sponsored by the Golden Gate Restaurant Association (together with PCFFA), which was concerned about the availability of fresh local crab over the course of the season. It was again supported by the associations representing fishermen in those ports where most of the central coast crab production took place. Most of the locally-based fish processors supported the bill as did numerous restaurants, chefs and seafood markets. Recreational fishing groups concerned about crab trap losses joined supporting the bill, as did every one of the state’s major conservation organizations, together with the City and County of San Francisco, Sonoma County and the San Mateo County Harbor District.
The bill was intended to: (1) prevent waste (when too much crab hits the market at once); (2) promote safer fishing conditions (avoiding the race for crab); (3) create a stable labor force and keep crab processing in California: (4) assure a supply of fresh, local crab over the course of the season, and; (5) protect the marine environment from lost crab traps on the ocean bottom.
Despite what we and most others believe were compelling reasons for the bill, Fish & Game, however, continued to side with its opponents -- a few large fish processors and out-of-the-area crab boat operators. Governor Schwarzenegger, apparently agreeing with a large processor and a few out of state vessel operators, vetoed the bill and let the state’s Dungeness limited entry program expire.
Unless an urgency bill can be passed by the Legislature early next year, the limited entry program will expire in April 2006, opening the way for any licensed fishing vessel to enter California’s Dungeness crab fishery. Urgency legislation is problematic because it requires a two-thirds majority for passage. As far as trap limits are concerned – keep in mind this was a trial program intended to determine the efficacy of such limits and provide direction on whether 250 or some other number would be appropriate – there will probably be legislation again next year. The question is how many crabs have to be wasted, how many jobs, or even lives, lost before Governor Schwarzenegger finally signs a bill.
Earlier this year, the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission embarked on an assessment for certifying that state’s crab as sustainably harvested under the international Marine Stewardship Council (MSC). This certification can help open markets both domestically (e.g., Whole Foods) and internationally and would give Oregon a leg-up on its competitors. Because Dungeness caught off California are essentially the same stocks, harvested under nearly identical regulations, PCFFA requested California be included in the assessment. The Crab Commission agreed and now both states’ Dungeness fisheries are undergoing MSC assessment. MSC certification should help fishermen by improving markets, which should translate into better ex-vessel prices for Dungeness.
PCFFA undertook the lead for California because there is no crab commodity commission in that state, as there is in Oregon. PCFFA, which initiated the legislation to create California’s Salmon Council and the old California Seafood Council, will be initiating action to establish a crab marketing board that would then be able to serve as the permanent contact with MSC.
For Oregon, at this time there is nothing we know of that should keep their fishery from being certified. California, however, could have a problem due to the expiration of its limited entry system if it doesn’t get reauthorized, and the heavy fishery on central coast stocks continues absent a trap limit or some other effort cap.
Oregon has also voted to adopt regulations to limit access to their Dungeness crab fishery to those persons holding Oregon permits and restrict Oregon crab permit holders from fishing in the 200 mile zones off other states that reciprocate with Oregon. Washington State is expected to enact this regulation, based on a survey indicating support of its crab fishermen. California, however, currently lacks authority to enact such a regulation given Schwarzenegger’s veto. Thus, California may be helpless to prevent an influx of boats from the north fishing outside of state waters.
Authority over the Dungeness fishery in federal waters was granted to the three west coast states through legislation authored by California Representative George Miller amending the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
The implications for crab fishermen from the implementation of the BSAI crab IFQ and IPQ systems look to be disastrous for most that’ve been in the fishery. While something had to be done to improve safety and the profitability of the fishery, what the North Pacific Council and the federal government have adopted may be worse than the initial problem. The wealth generated from the fishery will be concentrated in a very few hands, probably none of them working fishermen. Fishing communities who have long depended on the fishery have been hit hard and some could be left with no fishery at all if a processor owning quota decides to sell or pack up shop and leave for somewhere else.
The IFQ system would certainly have been fairer and not resulted in the huge numbers of displaced individuals if working fishermen (i.e., those actually working on a vessel) had been given equal consideration with vessel owners for quota. The North Pacific Council requires share holders to be fishermen in its sablefish and halibut IFQ system – perhaps the nation’s only successful IFQ program. Why couldn’t it have done the same thing with crab?
Moreover, there was no reason whatsoever for giving processors’ quota shares. The issue of protecting against “stranded capital” and preserving fishing communities could have been dealt with by giving fishing communities quota, with the proviso that it would be for processing in that community. That was not done and, instead, the North Pacific Council may have given us the most egregious decision ever made by a regional fishery council, even worse than the New England Council’s groundfish collapse fiasco.
Even the big winners in the North Pacific Council/NMFS “rationalization” scheme, however, may not be winners for long. Already some are talking about putting the crab quotas up for auction, similar to timber sales in national forests, forcing those with quota shares to have to bid each year for quota. Thus, instead of automatically being awarded quota annually, share holders would have to pay something akin to fair market value for the crab.
In California, where there may now be no controls after April 2006, the situation isn’t much better for those who have had a long history in crabbing and endured the good seasons with the bad. Fishermen are going to have to buy and set more traps just to stay competitive; this will make the fishery both more dangerous and less profitable. And, buying a larger boat is no answer given today’s fuel costs and the fact there are really no other fisheries for a large boat to get into and operate profitably, since crab in most year’s will not sustain an annual fishing operation.
Even the public, the folks who own the resource, are coming up big losers if all the crab continues to be harvested in a short time, often cooked dead and frozen. It certainly won’t be the delicacy visitors flocked to Fisherman’s Wharf and fine seafood houses for, but something to be put in crab cakes for inebriated gamblers in some smoke filled casino on the Vegas Strip or the Mississippi River.
The only good news may be that coming out of Oregon.
For the BSAI crab fishery, The Crab Crews Project is recording the stories that working crab fishermen tell about their experiences with rationalization of the Bering Sea crab fisheries. Project supporters hope this effort will contribute to providing redress of their grievances, and provide a basis for more equitable future rationalization efforts. For more information, contact: crabcrews@msn.com.
Another thing that can be done is insist on national standards for any IFQ or community quota program to protect against the abuses inherent in the BSAI crab program. The Marine Fish Conservation Network, working with fishing groups, is pushing for national standards for IFQs in the Magnuson-Stevens Act reauthorization. Fishermen should support the MFCN effort. For more information, go to: http://www.conservefish.org.
PCFFA will be sponsoring urgency legislation to maintain California’s limited entry program and, most likely, a second piece of crab legislation aimed at fixing other problems in the fishery, including some form of trap limits. For more information, contact: pcffafish@aol.com.
Chuck Wise is President of the Pacific Coast Federation of
Fishermen’s Associations. Larry Collins is Vice-President of the Crab Boat
Owners Association. Zeke Grader is Executive Director of the Pacific Coast
Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. The authors can be contacted via
PCFFA at PO Box 29370, San Francisco, CA 94129-0370, (415)561-5080, or by email
to: zgrader@ifrfish.org.
PCFFA can be reached at its Southwest Regional
Office: PO Box 29370, San Francisco, CA 94129-0370 USA, (415)561-5080;
Northwest Regional Office: PO Box 11170, Eugene, OR 97440-3370, (541)689-2000.
PCFFA’s email address is: fish1ifr@aol.com and its web site is at:
www.pcffa.org.