California’s Dungeness crab industry is feeling the pinch

Good morning. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

• California wants to protect its whales. Will it kill the Dungeness crab industry in the state?
• A leading pediatrician was already worried about the future of vaccines. Then RFK Jr. came along.
• Hiking plus yoga is the perfect combo. Get a two-for-one workout at these SoCal spots.
• And here’s today’s e-newspaper.

California’s crabby conundrum

Dungeness crabs are plucked from the Pacific to use for sushi rolls, salads and their namesake cakes.

Culinary demand for the crustaceans fuels a roughly $45-million-a-year industry in the Golden State, with an annual season that historically runs from late fall to midsummer.

But as Times reporter Hannah Wiley explained this week, crabbers are feeling the pinch after a delayed and underwhelming start to the season, which is being plagued by a number of complications.

This season “has been repeatedly truncated, due to both whale safety concerns and elevated levels of domoic acid, a toxin that builds up in shellfish,” she wrote. “[It] opened after New Year’s and is likely to end in spring. The shortened timeline … has cut California’s commercial crabbers out of the lucrative Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s markets, devastating the fleet’s income expectations.”

Crew members Bradlee Titus, left, and Axel Bjorklund throw out line while setting crab pots off the Sonoma County coast.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

One challenge for crabbers: increased regulations aimed at protecting migrating whales

The gear crab fishers depend on to catch and haul in their clawed crop can snag and entangle whales. Of particular concern off the California coast are humpback whales that commute through California’s waters to and from their tropical breeding grounds.

After years of reductions, 2024 saw 34 recorded entanglements, according to preliminary data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the highest figure in six years.

The species is listed as “threatened” or “endangered,” depending on their subgroup, and entanglements are a potentially deadly plight for the whales that wildlife advocates and state regulators have worked to reduce.

Marine biologist Nancy Black told Hannah that seeing an entangled whale is “really distressing.”

“Especially if you see one that has had it on for a long time, or it’s cutting through its body or it’s wrapped around its mouth,” she added.

Two crew members on a fishing boat pull a crab pot from the Pacific Ocean.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Crabbers have to limit the number of crab pots they drop and use a specific color of rope, limiting their potential haul and costing them money to replace gear.

And there’s another complication: “Wildlife groups, the state and fishery leaders disagree on what number of entanglements is ‘acceptable.’” Hannah noted. “Federal and state guidance isn’t always clear, often leaving conservationists and crews confused.”

Hannah spoke with veteran crabber Dick Ogg, who wants to avoid harming whales but thinks regulators are being unrealistic.

“They want zero entanglements,” he told her. “And zero is not an achievable number.”

And with whales slated to begin passing through California’s waters in the coming weeks, crabbers are bracing for their already constricted season to reach a standstill.

A Dungeness crab fisherman throws crab buoys and line off the fishing boat Karen Jeanne while setting crab pots.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Solutions are in the works

Some crabbers are experimenting with a new type of “pop-up” gear that could solve much of the entanglement problem.

“While traditional crab gear uses vertical lines to connect the pots to buoys at the surface, pop-up gear keeps the rope and a flotation device on the ocean floor with the trap,” Hannah explained.

When it’s time to haul in the trap, crabbers pull out their smartphones rather than pull up a line. An app sends an acoustic signal underwater to the trap, releasing the buoy.

Some crabbers aren’t sold on the technology, though, concerned about how well it performs in choppy waters.

You can read more about the crabbing conundrum in Hannah’s story.

Today’s top stories

Research fellow Youngmi Ji conducts research in a National Institutes of Health lab that studies orthopedic diseases. Trump’s budget proposal would cut NIH funding by about 20%.

(National Institutes of Health)

California joins the legal fight to stop National Institutes of Health cuts

• A judge blocked the Trump administration from making billions of dollars in NIH funding cuts hours after California and 21 other Democratic-run states sued.
• The ruling applies to the 22 states who brought the suit, which alleged the cuts will lead to layoffs, clinical trial suspensions and lab closures.

HIV infections could jump sixfold if U.S. withdraws support

• The head of the U.N. AIDS agency said the number of new HIV infections could jump more than six times by 2029 if American support of the biggest AIDS program is dropped, warning that millions of people could die and more resistant strains of the disease could emerge.
• The U.N. AIDS director also said the loss of American support for efforts to combat HIV was coming at another critical time, with the arrival of what she called “a magical prevention tool” known as lenacapavir, a twice-yearly shot that was shown to offer complete protection against HIV in women, and which worked nearly as well as for men.

What else is going on

• The strongest storm in a year is set to pound Southern California: Here’s what you need to know.
• What the Eaton fire could mean for Edison’s bottom line.
• How will Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts look? 4 things to watch at Dodgers spring training.
• Inside the bare-knuckle legal brawl between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.
• Is your ADU housing L.A. residents displaced by the recent fires? We want to hear about it.
• A judge finds the Trump administration hasn’t fully followed his order to unfreeze federal spending.
• A man may face prison after he allegedly tossed books onto U.S. 101 during an immigration policy protest.
• Kendrick Lamar televised ‘the revolution’ during Super Bowl halftime performance. Here’s what it meant.
• A 13-year-old girl scribbled ‘Help me!’ Now her kidnapper has a 35-year prison term.
  

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Commentary and opinions

• Trump isn’t an isolationist. He’s a bully — and that’s hurting U.S. influence in the world, writes columnist Doyle McManus.
• Trump’s move to kill a federal consumer watchdog will protect Big Business but cost consumers billions, columnist Michael Hiltzik writes.
• Love it or hate it, Trump’s zone-flooding can’t go on forever, writes columnist Jonah Goldberg.
• Luka Doncic is here! The newly acquired star dazzles in his Lakers debut, columnist Bill Plaschke writes.

This morning’s must-reads

Dr. Adam Ratner, who heads the pediatric infectious disease unit at NYU Langone’s Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital, tracks the history of a virus and its vaccination in his new book, “Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health.”

(Kevin Perez)

A leading pediatrician was already worried about the future of vaccines. Then RFK Jr. came along. Measles “is the thing we see first when public health starts to falter,” Dr. Adam Ratner said. “It’s not that humans aren’t susceptible to these diseases, or that Americans are somehow magically protected against these things that used to kill lots of us,” he said. “They can come back. And they will.”

Other must-reads

• Will California ever approve Historical Horse Racing machines to help save the sport?
• Hollywood’s spiciest writing group? It’s at a retirement home for showbiz veterans.

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].

For your downtime

Emily Phillips Brinker teaches yoga at Griffith Park in Los Angeles.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

• 🧘‍♀️Hiking plus yoga is the perfect combo. Get a two-for-one workout at these SoCal spots.
• 🍔 Ever heard of Chinese hamburgers? Here’s where to try the world’s oldest sandwich.
• 🎭‘Noises Off,’ Michael Frayn’s ingenious farce in revival at the Geffen Playhouse, doesn’t have to be perfect to succeed.

Staying in

• 📺 Lauren Graham shines in Tubi’s generational comedy ‘The Z-Suite.’
• 👨‍🍳 Here’s a recipe for simple quesadillas.
• ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.

A question for you: What’s a piece of advice that changed your life?

Stephen Reid writes: “As a teenager and a competitive debater, I had learned that a sarcastic wit was an effective weapon in dealing with family and peers, although it could, at times, veer to being mean-spirited. Once, when riding in a car driven by my stepmother, she remarked, ‘You know, your words can sometimes REALLY hurt people.’ It stunned me to learn that what I thought of as being funny could have such unintended and negative impacts, and that simple awareness has guided me ever since.”

Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally ... your photo of the day

Show us your favorite place in California! Send us photos you have taken of spots in California that are special — natural or human-made — and tell us why they’re important to you.

M.L.’s right to compete in girls’ sports has been challenged, but she said she isn’t backing down. Here, she practices hurdles.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Gina Ferazzi. Pictured is a transgender girl from a Riverside high school that has become a key battleground in the raging national debate over transgender youth in sports.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Ryan Fonseca, reporter
Defne Karabatur, fellow
Andrew Campa, Sunday reporter
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Hunter Clauss, multiplatform editor
Christian Orozco, assistant editor
Stephanie Chavez, deputy metro editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

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