Oregon Dungeness won't make Christmas table

Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)

2018-07-07

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Fresh Oregon Dungeness crab will be off the table for Christmas, and possibly even New Year's Day, as bad weather has joined concerns about toxin levels to cancel some traditional holiday dinner plans. State fish biologists are awaiting test results on crabs sampled Wednesday outside of four Oregon ports to determine whether domoic acid levels that have dogged Pacific crab this fall are waning. That sampling was planned for last week, but 30-foot seas triggered port closings along the Oregon Coast and scuttled sampling by even the biggest of commercial crab boats until this week, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. It appears the test results will not be available until Monday, too late for the minimum five days it takes for Oregon's most lucrative commercial fishery to deliver Dungeness crab to coastal processors, industry officials said. "So that timetable has passed for Christmas," said Hugh Link, executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission based in Coos Bay. If tests results show favorable toxin levels, then the regular three-state dialogue would have to take place and Oregon and Washington crabbers would have to settle on an initial landing price before they could drop their pots, Link said. Oregon and Washington natural-resource managers could wait until the Jan. 1 conclusion of a pre-commercial tribal crabbing season off the northern Washington coast, Link said. That would mean the first non-tribal Dungeness landed on the West Coast would be Jan. 4, he said. Until then, the tribal fishery remains "the only game in town," with those crab fetching top prices in Seattle and not yet filtering south, Link said. California's Dungeness have sported higher levels of domoic acid than Oregon's, according to ODFW. Washington's waters, like those north of Heceta Head in Oregon, are not under public-health advisories for domoic acid, but the commercial fleet in southern Washington has opted so far to delay its season start so crabbers don't descend on one area for the opener, Link said.  Waters north of Heceta Head have remained open for recreational crabbers, but the commercial season has been on hold from its normal Dec. 1 start. The health advisory that closed the South Coast to crabbing was issued Nov. 13 when domoic acid levels in crabs measured above 30 parts per million. It can be lifted when samples measure below that level for two consecutive weeks. Oregon's samples dropped beneath that threshold for two weeks in late November and early December, but the latest tests showed increased toxin levels — albeit still below the threshold — enough for Oregon fishery managers to want another round of tests before opening the South Coast to recreational crabbing in both the ocean and bays. Matt Hunter, ODFW's shellfish project leader, worried at that time that ocean conditions would push that sampling out two weeks, and he was right, though one commercial crabber was game enough to take on the rough seas to get those samples.  For the past two weeks, all of Oregon's sample sites have remained under that level, but two-thirds of the sites saw increases from the first week to the next, Hunter says. "He was willing to go out in 30-foot seas, but the Coast Guard closed the ports," Hunter says. Domoic acid, a toxin produced by algae, has been found at high levels in razor clams along the Oregon Coast this year. Crabs collect the acid by eating razor clams. Domoic acid, or amnesic shellfish toxin, can cause minor to severe illness and even death, according to ODFW. Symptoms can include dizziness, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea and memory loss. The toxins cannot be removed by cooking or freezing the crabs. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman . Follow him at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman .