If you’ve ever given it any thought – and you probably haven’t – you’d have probably presumed that the people who pull Dungeness crabs out of the waters off the Oregon coast had already come to an agreement about how many crabs to harvest.
After all, practically every other species of sea life that is commercially preyed upon by humans, from hermit crabs to sperm whales, has had limits put on where, when, how many and by whom they can be collected.
And Dungeness crabs are not just any old commercial arthropod. They’re the official state crustacean.
Well, that oversight is now being addressed through the Oregon Dungeness Crab Fishery Management Plan, and an oversight body has now been created to regulate the collection of Dungeness crab, to ensure that a generation from now, there will still be some off the Oregon coast.
Unless, of course, climate change completely renders the warming waters unfit for crab habitation, in which case we may need to name an official state jellyfish and learn to enjoy eating it.
By John M. Burt
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