December 2, 2010 Fish List Newsletter 12/2/2010: Dungeness Crab delayed... at least for now.
Hold on to your crab crackers, Dungeness fans. Crab boats are still tied up at the dock because of fisher/processor inability to reach a price agreement prior to yesterday’s official start of season. Much of this disagreement hinges on the whether or not the crabs are meaty enough to go to market and what the ex-vessel (to the boat) value of those crabs should be.
The fishing vessel Chevelle went out today to harvest a few test crabs that will go to a lab for assessment. Both the State of Oregon and the industry want to ensure a good quality crabs go to the market. This is assessed through the “pick” or ratio of crab meat to total crab weight.
Pick results should be in by late Saturday afternoon. Sunday at 10:00 am a conference call is scheduled at which time a report will be issued and fishers and processors go back to the bargaining table to discuss the results. If the “pick” is good, fishing could start immediately at a pre-agreed upon price of $1.65 per pound. As a second option, processors have offered a 2.5 cent price increase incentive if boats wait until Dec. 12th to start. If the pick is not good, then it’s Door #3, which leads straight back to the bargaining table again.
Legislation passed in 2003 allows for Oregon Crab Marketing Associations and the state’s seafood processors to meet under state supervision to discuss and set the opening price. The collective bargaining process has been used for eight consecutive years and has been successful in achieving a price agreement in six of those years.
So don’t planning on seeing any Oregon crabs for the Civil War game this weekend, but weather permitting, fresh crab should start showing up at retail seafood counters around the state in plenty of time for the upcoming holidays.
We’ll give you another update by Monday with the test results and let you know if we see boats pulling away from the dock (we hope so!).
And if you didn’t know: The Dungeness crab fishery is the most valuable commercial fishery on the Oregon coast. Last season’s harvest produced landings of more than 23 million pounds and an ‘ex-vessel’ value of nearly $45 million.
Check out the video of our Fall Celebration Dock Walk last weekend at www.youtube.com/ocean18mediaservices. And a big “Thank you!” to Casey Miller at Ocean 18 for shooting and posting the video!
