photo credit: Oceana
Two examples of Sub Sea Sonics' pop-up crab pots

You may have heard of 'dolphin-safe' tuna. Now, get ready for 'whale-safe' crab.

Dungeness crab fishing seasons have been significantly shortened for the last six years due to the risk of w hale entanglements in the vertical lines and buoys of conventional crab gear.

But new whale-safe crab gear is nearing final approval and that could mean a boon for the commercial crabbing fleet and a bounty for California crab lovers.

The "pop-up" crabbing gear eliminates entanglement risks by storing the line and buoy with the crab pot on the ocean floor.

That's until the crabber sends out an acoustic signal for the gear to “pop-up” to the surface for retrieval.

According to manufacturer Sub Sea Sonics, the new gear has completed successful full-scale testing in real world conditions.

Under what's called an experimental fishing permit, a small group of crabbers were allowed to deploy their pop-up crab gear despite the presence of whales, which would normally close the fishery.

The results exceeded expectation for some. But, those expectations weren't all that high at first, according to Oceana senior scientist Geoff Schester,

"Completely changing to a new technology,  you can imagine, there's a lot of skeptics out there," Schester said.  "Everything from it's going to get lost more, or it's going to get entangled and we're going to lay on top of each other, to you know the obvious questions: how much is this going to cost and who's going to pay for it?" Schester said

Oceana is an international nonprofit with the mission to protect the world's oceans.

Schester said this technology has actually been around for a long time.

"It was basically used for other things like the Department of Defense and really expensive oceanographic equipment that people wanted to be able to retrieve and others not to be able to find," Schester said.

That meant it was expensive.

But crabs can bring in a lot of clams.

"Dungeness crab is generally one of California's top three fisheries in the tens of millions of dollars, providing thousands of jobs up and down the coast," Schester said.

Schester said the incentive was there for  some intrepid fishers to voluntarily participate it the early trials.  

"I think it definitely took some bravery and some risk-taking fishermen that were thinking about, alright, well, 'how do we innovate' and how do we actually get our spring season back?" Schester said.

photo credit: Oceana
Stephen Melz behind two examples of Sub Sea Sonics' pop-up crab potsAmong the intrepid: Stephen Melz.

Melz said he's been fishing for forty years and crabbing since 1991, and participated in the recently-completed testing.

"I was one of the 19 last season before when we did 150 pots," Melz said.  "And I was one of the twelve for Sub Sea Sonic this season when we did it with our full stack."

His "full stack" is 450 pots.

To purchase new equipment can be pricey.

Sub Sea Sonic's website quotes $3,300 to just under $6,000 for an 'acoustic release' package. 

According to an email to KRCB News from Bart Chadwick of Sub Sea Sonic after we published this article, "the acoustic releases used in our system are $350-$500. Including the Guardian line handling sled, the entire package is $1000 – 1500."

Chadwick said, "because the gear is fished in longlines of up to 50 pots, only one pop-up unit is needed per longline (or one at each end was required for longlines >20), so the actual cost per pot is about $100."

"Sub Sea Sonics and Guardian have worked very hard to make the gear affordable and that is a key reason why the fishermen have agreed to test it," Chadwick said. "In general the fishermen doing the testing have purchased the gear themselves."

Melz said you have to put the cost in perspective.

"So now you got to think, I have to make an investment to buy some pop-up gear, and some long-line ground line, so I can go out and work when the whales are here," Melz said. "The real financial hardship is not fishing when the whales are around."

Some crabbers who qualified received supporting grants from the Euphotic Foundation so they could participate in the 2025 spring testing, and those in the biz say grant funding does exist to support future whale-safe crabbing operations.

As for Melz, is he sold on the new pop-up technology?

"Oh god yes," Melz said "It is amazing. Oh, absolutely. Yup!" 

Based on spring trial results, Sub Sea Sonics, along with Guardian Ropeless Systems, say they will continue to work with fishermen and the State of California toward full pop-up gear authorization for the 2025/2026 fishing season.

"That's really been the goal of the last ten years of this Dungeness crab fishing gear working group," Schester said.  "How do we protect the whales but keep our fisheries gong as well, so that we can actually peacefully co-exist?"