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California health dept: don't eat crab caught from the coast until further notice

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XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Don-t-eat-Dungeness-crab-California-health-6608939.php

Do not — repeat, not — eat crab caught along much of the California coast until further notice. That’s the stunning message issued Tuesday by health officials just days before Saturday’s start of the recreational crab season, which may be delayed.

The California Department of Public Health is warning that potentially deadly levels of domoic acid have been found in Dungeness crab and rock crab caught along the coastline between Oregon and the southern border of Santa Barbara County. As a result, the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment is recommending the Dungeness season be delayed and the rock crab fishery be closed.

The Fish and Game Commission will hold an emergency public meeting at 8 a.m. Thursday in Sacramento, to be live-streamed on Cal-Span.

“Delaying or closing the season is disappointing,” said Craig Shuman, marine regional manager of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, which sets the dates for the season. “But public health and safety is our top priority.”

On the mild side, toxic crabs can cause vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps and headache, according to public health officials who say the symptoms can persist for days.

But severe poisoning can kill a victim, officials report. Short of that, the poisoning can also lead to permanent short-term memory loss, coma, seizures and other symptoms.

The 600-boat commercial crabbing season is scheduled to begin Nov. 15, and crabbers have been pouring into the Bay Area from Alaska, Oregon and Washington hoping to earn half their annual income. And Bay Area restaurants — and customers — expect crabbers to provide tons of crustaceans for the menus.

“It’s going to be devastating” for the crabbers whose livelihood depends on this crucial time of the year, said Mike Dvorak, captain of the High Seas, a vessel big enough to collect 20,000 pounds of varied seafood in a single haul. Crabbers gross about $60 million a year. Halting the crab season would have a lesser impact on boat owners, he said.

“Those who aren’t boat owners will say it’s a disaster,” he said. “They won’t know what to tell their families.”

Chefs like Gordon Drysdale at Scoma’s on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf say they go through 40 to 60 Dungeness crabs a day. And during the holidays, they go through about 100 daily.

“It’s a big deal for us. We’re all kind of anxious,” Drysdale said. At the same time, restaurants can get high-quality crab from elsewhere, he said. “We’ve had to have crab on the menu every day for 50 years, so everyone’s pretty resourceful.”

Boat owners believe this summer’s warmer coastal water — 60-plus degrees on average, instead of the typical 54 degrees — is behind the toxic bloom.

Health officials say symptoms of poisoning can appear up to 24 hours after someone has eaten toxic seafood, though no illnesses have been reported.

Domoic acid is a naturally occurring toxin related to the rise of a tiny plant called pseudo-nitzschia. Officials say they aren’t sure why the plant has bloomed and tainted the crabs — and they don’t know when it will subside.

“The health advisory will be lifted once the levels are no longer above acceptable levels,” they said.
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Z

zeemumu

Member
But, there's an entire bag full of crab salad in my fridge, and I was gonna make crab stuffed mushrooms.
 
A

atr0cious

Member
Lmao, wow, we just bought tickets to a chepino festival down in Monterrey for later this month. Hope they do refunds.
 
S

studyguy

Member
My friend and I literally just fished up some Dungeness like two weeks ago in his crab net off a pier in Ventura while just casually fishing.

RIP him and his daughter I guess.
 
M

Mindlog

Member
ekgKJ51.jpg

You make me sad.
 
B

BobTheFork

Member
No more spider rolls?!?!


I'm very interested to see what happens to their population after a delayed or light harvest season.
 
J

Jams775

Member
shit some of my family ate some crab dinner at the casino last friday and had come down with what we thought was the flu. I'll have to let them know about this.
 
B

blackjaw

Member
ReAxion said:
The season hasn't started. How are you guys getting these toxic crabs?
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#notallcrabs

My neighbor is anxiously waiting to drop his pots. He usually gives me 10-12 crabs once a month which is really nice of him, he is probably going to be pretty disappointed in this...or just go anyways. Note to self do not accept crabs for a while.

Also, this happened last year at the end of season; you could eat the legs but no meat from the body due to algae. I don't recall getting sick (I just like the crab leg meat for chowder and crab cakes).
 
J

jiggle

Member
My mum called to tell me this yesterday
But she said not to eat ANY crab at all
Without providing any details
I was like, noooo
My plan to gorge on hairy crabs when visiting HK ruined!

But sounds like I'll be fine
Shame though
Love dungeoness crab at boiling crab
 
X

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
UPDATE: Recreational Dungeness crab season postponed indefinitely

Hold the melted butter because those Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts of fresh local crab will likely have to wait — possibly for a very long time.

The California Fish and Game Commission voted during an emergency meeting Thursday to suspend the recreational Dungeness and rock crab fishing season along the coast between Oregon and Santa Barbara after a potentially deadly neurotoxin was detected in the meaty delicacies. The season was supposed to kick off Saturday.

Chuck Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, is expected to make a decision soon on whether to also close the $60 million commercial crab fishery, which had promised to deliver the seafood to stores and restaurants starting Nov. 15.

The health threat is so serious that crab industry veterans are on board with the clampdown.

“This is serious,” said Dave Bitts, president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, who believes there is no choice but to halt all crabbing until at least January. “We don’t need to have anyone get sick from eating a crab that we knew might have had something wrong with it. That is the worst thing we can do for ourselves.”

The toxin, known as domoic acid, is produced naturally by algal blooms linked to this year’s record Pacific Ocean temperatures. Known to cause seizures, coma and even death in humans and animals, the poisonous algae is estimated to be 40 miles wide and at least 45 feet deep along the Pacific coast.

Scientists who study ocean biology say the algae blooms, which have been detected continually since April, are the biggest and most toxic they have ever seen.

The suspension of recreational crabbing came after state biologists found high levels of domoic acid in crabs at eight ports from Morro Bay to Crescent City. That prompted the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to recommend closing the year-round rock crab fishery and delaying the recreational and commercial Dungeness seasons.

The 3-0 Fish and Game Commission vote, with two commissioners absent, halts the recreational Dungeness season until testing shows the spindly crustaceans are clean. Fish and Wildlife officials said a decision by Bonham on whether to close the commercial season “is likely to come down in coming days.”

“I’m confident he will do the right thing, which is to close the commercial season for Dungeness and rock crabs,” Bitts said.
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From 150 to 180 boats are poised to roll out of San Francisco, Half Moon Bay and Bodega Bay next week to stake out territory and sink crab pots. Although the start of the season has occasionally been delayed while crabbers and seafood processors haggle over prices, nobody can remember an interruption like this one.

“We’ve never had this in my career down here, and I’ve been fishing crabs since ’86,” said Larry Collins, president of both the Crab Boat Owners Association and the San Francisco Community Fishing Association. He noted that water temperatures measured 61 degrees Thursday when they should have been about 54.

There had been high hopes among commercial crabbers in California. Almost 13 million pounds of Dungeness were pulled in last year from Sonoma south to Morro Bay (San Luis Obispo County) — about 2 million pounds more than the previous year.

The price of fresh crab can vary, from about $4 to more than $10 a pound. If the season closes, Bay Area restaurants and other retailers will be forced to import crab from other states, like Washington, to fill the void. Merchants at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco say wholesale prices could shoot up by as much as $3 per pound, a cost that undoubtedly would be passed on to customers.

Bitts doubted that contention, saying a great many crabs peddled at Fisherman’s Wharf already come from other places.

“Those guys at the wharf get their crabs from wherever they can get them,” Bitts said. “Sure there is a little cachet in saying these are local crabs, but for most people a Dungeness crab is a Dungeness crab. It’s not like they didn’t get their crabs from faraway sources fairly regularly in the past.”

Health department officials, working with game wardens and marine biologists, said they will continue testing crabs and other sea creatures regularly over the next few months. It’s a difficult situation because the neurotoxin seems to be all over the place, with blooms expanding and merging.

The chemical makeup also appears to be changing in unpredictable ways. Researcher Anthony Odell of the University of Washington’s harmful algal bloom monitoring program said he found several species of algae in a single bloom, describing it as a “toxic plankton soup.”

Dangerous levels of domoic acid were found in anchovies earlier this year, forcing the closure of that fishery. Officials in California, Oregon and Washington have also implemented warnings or closures for sardine fishing.

The toxin accumulates in fish, shellfish and mussels and poisons the marine mammals, birds and people who feed on them. When it is sufficiently dense, it attacks the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center, and can cause memory loss, tremors and convulsions.

The poison has killed whales, harbor porpoises, fur seals, sea otters and sea lions, large numbers of which have been found convulsing with seizures, according to marine biologists. This year, 180 sea lions have been brought to the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands with domoic acid toxicity.

Recent studies have shown that the toxin can even affect the fetuses of pregnant animals.

Humans are not immune. Three Canadians died of domoic acid poisoning in 1987 after they ate mussels, according to a Stanford study. They were among 250 people from Prince Edward Island who became ill. A fourth person developed temporal lobe epilepsy and died two years later of pneumonia.
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