ABERDEEN — The nontribal coastal commercial Dungeness crab fishery has been delayed again because tests have shown the crab have not met the minimum meat recovery criteria. Meanwhile, the Quinault Indian Nation opened its commercial crab fishery Sunday.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife sent the industry notice Friday after it and the Oregon and California departments of fish and wildlife agreed to “further delay the opening of the 2019-20 coastal Dungeness crab fishery from Point Area, California north to the U.S. Canada boarder through Dec. 31, 2019, at least.”
In order for the non-tribal commercial season to begin, conditions of a tristate agreement between Washington, California and Oregon must be met. One of those conditions is meat recovery, and the minimum threshold must be met in all the test pulls for all three states for the fishery to open.
