One week into the season, most of the crabs were gone

One week into the eight-month Dungeness Crab season, most of the legally catchable crabs had already been taken. The result was a glut of crabs, low prices for fishermen, and the dumping of dead, unsold crabs into San Francisco Bay, according to the Chronicle. Crab fishermen have been distributing a video showing piles of crabs that died waiting to be offloaded during the glut.

Traditionally, the crab industry belonged to small, local boats with two to three hundred traps, but fishermen from as far north as Washington have arrived with boats carrying more than 1,000 traps.  Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill setting a 250-pot limit per vessel for two years. It was opposed by the owners of large vessels.

The Central California fishery extends from Morro Bay to Point Arena, but most crabs are caught in Bodega Bay, Half Moon Bay and outside San Francisco Bay, according to an AP report in the Mercury News.