Domoic acid levels in crab monitored closely

Has the ship sailed on the crab fishing season in Monterey Bay?

“Keeps being pushed off into the future, and we really don’t know when it is going to open up,” said Monterey Harbormaster Steve Scheiblauer.

The lack of season has caused widespread economic pain.

“A lot of people that do crab fishing also do salmon fishing. Aalmon were really not around to any degree last summer,” said Steve Scheiblauer.

Commercial fisherman are not the only ones feeling the pinch, but also recreational. Crab fishing was a big draw for tourists down on the peer.

“There’s not much of a demand for the sand dab fishing were doing now, even though were going out and it’s really good,” said Chris Fishing Trips Employee Keith Stemler.

Chris’ Fishing Trips reel in reservations from all over the world, but business this time is undoubtedly different.

“Certainly business is about fifty percent difference, lower, then if we would have had Dungeness crab. I know people that have lost their boats now, they’re losing everything, and they can’t pay their bills. It’s terrible,” said Stemler.

The latest numbers by the California Department of Public Health show safe levels of domoic acid for both rock crab and Dungeness. However Food Safety Chief Patrick Kennelly, said more testing needs to be done.

“We have to have two clean sets of samples that are collected one week apart with none of the samples being above the action level before we can modify the alerts,” said Kennelly.

It is up to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to open the season.

“You know we can modify our advisory and say that there is not a problem in this one little area, but if opening the fishery can not be enforced by the Department of Fish and Wildlife, then it creates some problems,” said Kennelly.