The commercial crab season officially began moments after Central California crab fishermen and seafood processors agreed to a price of $2.25 per pound for the spindly crustaceans. Larry Collins, head of the San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association, said that as both parties agreed there will be crab on the market by Wednesday or Thursday. The agreement came after two weeks of rancorous haggling over the price food processors would pay for the crab haul, a delay that kept fresh crab off of Thanksgiving dinner tables.
Collins also said that the local commercial crab season was supposed to begin Nov. 15. Crab fishermen in San Francisco, Half Moon Bay and Bodega Bay wanted $2.50 per pound, but the processors were offering only $2. The offer was a 25-cent increase over last year but still one of the lowest prices in 30 years. According to fishermen rising cost of fuel has pushed the price of crabs such a high that it affects the catch. Processors argued that, given the difficult economic times, people would not pay what retailers would be forced to charge for the hard-shelled delicacy.
The handshaking had barely been completed after the compromise agreement when 150 to 180 boats from the three ports rocketed out into the ocean to stake out territory and sink crab pots. There are high hopes among commercial crabbers in Central California, especially after a record 19 million pounds of Dungeness were pulled in last year, a stunning increase over the year before when a little over 3 million pounds were hauled in.
Pete Kalvass, Fish and Game’s senior environmental scientist, said things will go fine thia year as the both the parties have agreed on their issue.
