Wildlife officers from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Marine Enforcement Division have noticed an uptick in the number of commercial Dungeness crab cases in North Coast waters since December 2021.
Since December 9, 2021, there have been five cases out of Crescent City and two out of Eureka regarding possession of undersize crabs by commercial crab fishermen. The most common violation during this period has been commercial harvest of undersized crabs. Commercial Dungeness crab fishermen are expected to measure their entire catch and keep only crabs that are equal to or greater than 6 ¼ inches, which is slightly more than the required 5 ¾ width required of recreational crabbers. There is a provision in the law to authorize possession of no more than one percent of the catch to be undersize.
In all seven cases, citations were written, the loads were seized and the proceeds from the sales of the crab were directed to the Wildlife Preservation Fund until the cases can be adjudicated in court. Collectively in the seven cases, there were 575 undersized crab discovered during inspections in the past few months. The illegal loads seized have ranged from 8 to 24 percent undersized, making them gross violations of the one percent undersized Dungeness crab allowance. During the investigations, wildlife officers discovered evidence that some boat crews had attempted to avoid wildlife officers at the dock and had possibly dumped a load of short crabs. One of the cited violators had been recently warned by wildlife officers for possession of short crabs.
A slightly different type of Dungeness crab violation also occurred in December 2021 involving an anonymous citizen tip that a Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel (CPFV) would be using 120 recreational traps in addition to their commercial traps to fish for commercial Dungeness
