#entaglement

From 2000 to 2014, there were an average of 10 whale entanglements per year on the West Coast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. However, in the midst of the El Niño weather pattern and a marine heat wave (sometimes known as the “warm blob”) that started in 2014, the number went up to 30 in 2014, to 62 in 2015 and then another 71 in 2016.

The main species affected were humpback whales. Dungeness crab fishing gear, which has lines that run from buoys on the surface down to crab traps as deep as the sea floor, was the main culprit.

The number of reported whale entanglements dropped to 31 in 2017, likely because water temperatures went back down. But with another El Niño forecast for early 2019, there’s concern that there will be a repeat increase in entanglements, even though the state and fishermen have taken measures to prevent them.

Monsell said that immediate, and possibly dramatic, steps need to be taken, such as closing whale hotspots like Monterey Bay to the fishery in anticipation of warming temperatures predicted this season.

“The state needs to step up and take bold actions to protect these whales,” said Monsell. “One entanglement is unlawful under the Endangered Species Act.”

However, other environmental groups have praised both the crab fleet and the state for taking steps to address the problem.

On Wednesday, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announcedthat it was putting together a new conservation plan to protect the whales. In September the state passed SB1309, which gives the department the authority to close the fishery when there is an increased risk of entanglements. In 2015 the department established a California working group to research solutions and try out new gear. It is composed of fishermen, scientists and ecologists from conservation groups like the Nature Conservancy and Oceana.

“It needs to be something that’s easy as possible and cost effective,” said Dick Ogg, a Bodega Bay fisherman in the working group, who spoke at a hearing Wednesday in San Francisco hosted by state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) about entanglements. To start, Ogg said fishermen have been tightening lines between their buoys and traps to reduce the risk of entanglement. The overall process, he said, has “helped the fishermen be more aware, and it helped us fish more responsibly.”

Increased entanglements are posing a new climate-change related roadblock to California’s crab fishermen, already reeling from millions of dollars in losses from delays in three of the last four commercial seasons due to domoic acid contamination. The toxin is the result of algal blooms that linger into crab season as both the temperature and acidification of the ocean increases with climate change.

“When we’re already threatened with large closures, it becomes very difficult for some to think they’re going to be closed down for whales,” said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, which last month sued 30 fossil fuel companies for “knowingly causing climate change” that created catastrophic economic damage to the California and Oregon fishing industry. “It’s not that the fishermen want to hurt whales.”

“Unprecedented” warmer water temperatures in 2015 and 2016 reduced the offshore krill population and restricted the amount of cooler upwelled water, causing what’s called habitat compression for the whales, said Jarrod Santora, an associate researcher at UC Santa Cruz who studies ecosystem oceanography, at the hearing.

“There was no food in town for the whales,” said Santora. “The only food that was available was the near-shore anchovy population.”

That brought humpback whales into closer proximity to the thousands of crab pots that fishermen leave unattended usually for a day or two at a time while waiting for them to fill with crab. And, when humpback whales feed on anchovy instead of krill, Santora said they’re more acrobatic when they feed, rising up out of the water and becoming more easily entangled.

Once caught in lines, the animals panic and thrash. The ropes can cut through their blubber, amputate their fins or damage their baleen so they can’t breathe, said Pieter Folkens, who frees trapped whales for NOAA. Injuries lead to infections, or the whales suffocate and die before they are noticed. In some cases they can’t be saved.

“Blue whales are impossible to disentangle from the water. They’re just too big and powerful,” said Folkens.

Possible solutions remain undecided. The working group has experimented with degradable lines that break with force, along with solar loggers that track boats and crab pots to see how they are interacting with the whale population.

A long-term option that’s still in development is what’s called ropeless gear, where the line and buoy are bundled and attached to the trap until a timer or other device releases them to the surface, where fishermen can find them. Lobster fishermen have experimented with such gear to protect North Atlantic right whales.

The fishermen, meanwhile, say they are trying to respond to the challenge and stay in business, with the support of several environmental groups.