Bay Nature: As Whale Populations Grow, Dungeness Crabbers Foresee Their Own Demise
- Species conservation
- Entanglement
Traffic at sea: Humpback whales are inhabiting waters off California in steadily rising numbers, and the Dungeness crab fishery must make room.
Published in Bay Nature: March 22, 2023
For seven hours, we stare at a gray, choppy ocean. An occasional pelagic bird soars overhead, but more than anything else there is just ocean. What the 20 passengers aboard the Amigo want to see are the humpback whales—acrobats of the sea longer than a school bus and as heavy as five or six elephants—that hang out along California’s coast from spring to fall feeding on krill and anchovy.
Weepy fog keeps us shivering. A few crumple into seasick heaps. But as the boat heads back to San Francisco, luck changes.
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