Crabbers, seafood lovers alarmed amid threat to Dungeness season

The docks at Fisherman’s Wharf were splashed by sun but cast in gloom Wednesday as word spread that a deadly natural toxin linked to this year’s record Pacific Ocean temperatures was likely to delay or even force cancellation of Dungeness crab season off the coast of San Francisco.

“Guys have been out here for months getting these pots ready,” said Doug Gutterman of wholesaler ABS Seafood, motioning toward a pile of crab pots sitting on Pier 45.

Poisonous domoic acid has been detected in the spindly crustaceans, prompting the California Department of Public Health to issue a warning against eating Dungeness and rock crab caught along the coastline between Oregon and Santa Barbara County.

The state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment on Tuesday recommended closing the year-round rock crab fishery and delaying recreational Dungeness season, which is scheduled to begin Saturday.

The $60 million commercial crab fishery, which is scheduled to begin Nov. 15, could also be shut down, said Jordan Traverso, a spokeswoman for the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

If that happens, Bay Area restaurants and other retailers would be forced to import crab from other states to fill the void, a tactic that could cause prices to shoot up by as much as $3 per pound wholesale.

[...] what trumps our mission to provide opportunities for fishermen is the potential risk to public health.

Recreational crab fishing is a multimillion-dollar business, including equipment sales, boat rentals and guides, but the commercial season is a particularly big deal.

A closure would also be felt in seafood restaurants and among the men and women who work behind the scenes cracking, cleaning and selling crab.

The highly anticipated scramble for Dungeness begins every year about this time when 150 to 180 boats roll out of San Francisco, Half Moon Bay and Bodega Bay to stake out territory and sink crab pots.

The neurotoxin, which is found in algae blooms that often proliferate in warmer water, accumulates in shellfish, mussels, anchovies, sardines and herring.

When it is sufficiently dense, it attacks the hippocampus, the brain's memory center, and can cause memory loss, tremors, convulsions and death.

The poison has killed whales, harbor porpoises, fur seals, sea otters and sea lions, huge numbers of which have recently been found convulsing with seizures, according to marine biologists.

The first sign that domoic acid poisoning was causing epilepsy in sea lions came on Memorial Day in 1998 when 400 of the marine mammals washed ashore in Monterey Bay.

“It is disturbing because algal blooms in general are becoming one of the most common causes of marine mammal die-offs,” said Gulland, adding that warming ocean water related to the El Niño weather pattern probably contributes but is not the only factor.