Recent survey conducted by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that more crabbers die off the shores of Washington, Oregon and California than those fishing king and opilio crab in Alaska’s Bering Sea. This proves that the West Coast is more dangerous than Alaska. Nick Furman, executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, told that all commercial fishing is dangerous, but crabbers face the worst weather.
It is said that the swaying rhythm of a West Coast crab boat moving through ocean swells is interrupted by a jarring shift of 25,000 pounds of crab pots. As the pots shift it causes change in the boat’s center of gravity and the boat may turn turtle, taking everyone with it. The adventures of Alaska fishermen are profiled as highest-rated docudrama every week, and the danger is part of the drama. But the Dungeness fishery claims more lives.
According to CDC statistics 11 Alaska crab fishermen who died between 2000 and 2006 while 17 Dungeness fishermen died during the same period. It is fact that the Bering Sea crabbers went through a fishery management “rationalization” process in 2005. But it fails to effect as fishermen wouldn’t have to race to sea in bad weather.
According to few fishermen an individual quota system, as in Alaska, would make the West Coast fishery safer. But others say the same market constraints, getting the crab to consumers before Christmas, would maintain the race for crab, despite any management changes.
