Crab pots and floats were piled high aboard the F/V Big Wave of Newport, tethered at Port of Newport Dock 5 Thursday afternoon. Price negotiations between crabbers and processors - mediated by the Oregon Department of Agriculture - began Wednesday and should resume today (Friday). (Photo by Terry Dillman)

The crabs are ready. Crabbers are still busy gearing up in windy, rainy conditions at the Newport docks, anticipating the Nov. 28 pre-soak. And the annual price negotiations between fishermen and processors, with oversight by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, began Wednesday in Newport.

Nick Furman, executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, said negotiations stopped at 7 p.m. Wednesday with no price yet set for the Dec. 1 opening of the 2009 season.

“They suspended face-to-face negotiations and will return to the bargaining table by conference call Friday (today),” Furman said Thursday afternoon. “They decided they needed some time to discuss the current offers with their respective groups before resuming negotiations.”

Opening price is vital to the crabbers’ livelihoods because most of the season’s landings occur within the first eight weeks of the season, and their costs, especially for fuel and insurance, continue to rise.

Last season’s starter price was $1.60 per pound, which came in the wake of a record $2-per-pound first-week price offered in 2007.

Furman could not discuss actual numbers until the negotiations are complete, but so far, prospects look reasonable for 2009, and fishing crews are getting ready for what is considered Oregon’s most dangerous fishery due mainly to the nasty winter weather fishing crews must often endure in December.

The average Oregon catch is just above 10-million pounds. The fishery is cyclical, so catch fluctuates. Crabbers hauled 12.3-million pounds of Dungeness crabs into Oregon ports in 2007, and 13-million pounds in 2008.

Catch estimates for this season range from 11-million to 15-million pounds, depending on who’s talking.

Quality tests determine whether the crabs are meaty enough to harvest and sustain the population. Meat recovery rate - actual meat weight versus overall mean weight - must reach at least 23 percent along the Oregon coast north of Cascade Head, and 25 percent south of Cascade Head.

Mitch Vance, shellfish project leader for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW)’s Marine Resources Program at Hatfield Marine Science Center, said quality tests in October and early November indicate the crabs are more than ready. They also passed testing for the presence of paralytic shellfish toxins that the ODA’s Food Safety Division required as a precaution due to recent closures of the Oregon coast to recreational mussel harvesting because of elevated levels of the toxin.

The harvest usually begins Dec. 1, when the crabs are hard-shelled, full of meat, and in their prime. The season closes Aug. 14 to minimize handling and allow post-molt, soft-shelled crabs to “fill out” undisturbed for the next season.



Terry Dillman is the assistant editor of the News-Times. Contact him at (541) 265-8571, ext 225, or terrydillman@newportnewstimes.com.



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