Commercial crab season (and crab gear season) in full swing

Click on the words above “Commercial crab season (and crab gear season) in full swing” to see this entire post

For several weeks in October and November I walked 10 Mile beach and Drakes Beach often to pick up all the crab gear I could find.

I wanted to clear the beaches of gear from past seasons so that I could be sure that once this season started, I’d be fairly certain that any gear washing ashore was from this season.

Crab should cost twice what it does, with half of it going to pay those that clean up after the commercial (and sport) fishing fleets.

Such stewardship. Sigh.

Everything you see below was collected from Point Reyes Beaches from 16 December, 2019 – 3 January, 2020.

More here, and here.

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Whales off Point Reyes send message to delay crab season

Click the words above “Whales off Point Reyes telegraph message to delay crab season” to see this entire post.

While recreationally crab and rock fishing off the Point Reyes beach this past Monday the 18th of November I was witness to some amazing whale activity I’d never before seen.

At least three whales (Humpback?) were repeatedly and rapidly slapping the surface of the sea with their tales.

Maybe they could sense that soon, many thousands of heavy traps with ropes and buoys were about to be dropped into the sea where they feed.

Maybe they were letting us recreational crab fishermen know that human activity takes a huge toll on whales and other marine life.

Whether it be from the millions of pounds of plastic humans dump into the sea each year, or, the deep cuts into their flesh when they and their relatives get tangled up in the ropes used to tether traps to buoys.

I tend to think they were sending a message to us. Are we listening?

Thankfully the CDFW and commercial crabbers got the message and pushed back the day when up to 170,000 traps with thousands of miles of plastic rope and hundreds of thousands of buoys are repeatedly dropped in the sea in search of dungeness crab.

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Whales slap the surface of the sea off Point Reyes on 18 November, 2019. ©Richard James – coastodian.org

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Whales slap the surface of the sea off Point Reyes on 18 November, 2019. ©Richard James – coastodian.org

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Whales slap the surface of the sea off Point Reyes on 18 November, 2019. ©Richard James – coastodian.org

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Whales slap the surface of the sea off Point Reyes on 18 November, 2019. ©Richard James – coastodian.org

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Whales slap the surface of the sea off Point Reyes on 18 November, 2019. ©Richard James – coastodian.org

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Whales slap the surface of the sea off Point Reyes on 18 November, 2019. ©Richard James – coastodian.org

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Whales slap the surface of the sea off Point Reyes on 18 November, 2019. ©Richard James – coastodian.org

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Whales slap the surface of the sea off Point Reyes on 18 November, 2019. ©Richard James – coastodian.org

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Whales slap the surface of the sea off Point Reyes on 18 November, 2019. ©Richard James – coastodian.org

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