Closing Of BC Dungeness Crab Fishery Sparks Anger
July 10, 2013 | 1 min to read
The tasty, hence lucrative, Dungeness crab is off-limits in B.C.’s northern coastal waters this month, and the region’s crab fishermen are exceedingly, well, crabby about it.
“Yeah, you could say that,” said Dan Edwards, executive director of the Area A Crab Association, as he voiced the fishermen’s mounting anger over a decision by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to keep the crab fishery closed until Aug. 1.
“We’ve never seen it open so late. There are millions of dollars being lost here,” Mr. Edwards said Tuesday. “The kind of damage being done to these guys is irreparable. It’s their livelihood.”
Mel Kotyk, area director for the DFO, said the region was declared off-limits for crab harvesting after sampling provided insufficient evidence that it was safe to allow the fishermen to lay their traps without damaging the fishery.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: The Globe and Mail