The financial woes of West Coast fishermen has increased with an unusually weak Dungeness crab harvest, low consumer demand and the unprecedented collapse of the Pacific chinook salmon fishery. It is fact that commercial fishermen in California, Oregon and Washington are struggling to stay afloat financially. They say the downturn could force fishermen who depend heavily on crab and salmon to leave the shrinking ranks of the region’s fishing fleet.
Duncan MacLean, a commercial fisherman since 1972, said that with this crab season being slim at best, it’s going to be pretty hard to make it through to the next one. He added that he would suspect there are going to be lots of people falling by the wayside. The recent Dungeness crab season is shaping up to be one of the least productive in years.
Last spring, federal regulators for the first time canceled the West Coast’s commercial salmon season after a near-record low number of chinook returned to spawn in the rivers of California’s Central Valley. Congress approved $100 million in federal disaster relief to help trollers and businesses that depend on West Coast salmon fishing.
Paul Shenkman, who owns Sam’s Chowder House, said that in most years, low supply means higher prices, but this year crab fishermen are getting paid less than they got in more abundant years. It is told that fishermen wonder whether they can afford to keep fishing for a living. It is found that the salmon fishing ban and poor crab harvest could force more commercial fishermen to leave the business at a time when the Pacific Coast fleet is aging and shrinking amid increasing regulation, declining fisheries and the expansion of farmed fish.
