By DANA TIMS/YachatsNews.com
With Oregon’s Dungeness crab season officially opening Wednesday, a number of factors are lining up to push prices to record early-season highs.
Last year’s relatively low-yield season has buyers itching to restock their supplies, while the complete cancellation earlier this year of Alaska’s red king crab fishery in the Bering Sea is stoking demand for Oregon Dungeness crabs.
What appears certain is that the season-opening price agreed upon by crabbers and processors will smash the previous high of $3.10 per pound set in 2014-15 — the last time the crab season opened Dec. 1.
“The lowest price I’ve heard so far this year is $4.75,” said Taunette Dixon of the Newport Fishermen’s Wives group. “Prices are considerably higher than usual.”
Prices are more splintered than usual, as well, she said. Processors and boats in some ports are agreeing to one price, while those same groups are agreeing on different prices in other ports.
Whatever price is agreed upon for the season opening will soon be overtaken and reset by market forces, said Tim Notovny, communications director for the Oregon Dungeness Crab Association.
“We’ll likely see a lot of fluctuations right after those first loads of crab come in,” he said. “At that point, the market starts to dictate what happens next.”
Last season, the price started at $3.86 per pound in January and eventually rose to $9.51 per pound in May because of poor catches and dwindling effort. The average for the season was $4.97 on a catch of 12.2 million pounds.
State regulations allowed the 315 or so boats that will take part in this year’s crabbing season to start setting pots Sunday. Crabbers began pulling their pots at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
This year marks the first time in seven years that the crabbing season likely will not experience any delays in opening. In past years, a combination of low meat quality and high levels of a harmful acid associated with algal blooms has caused season-opening dates to be pushed back.
The only wrinkle could come this year if slightly elevated levels of domoic acid found recently in razor clams along southern Oregon’s coast require further laboratory testing to ensure it is not affecting crab meat.
“Due to an overabundance of caution, we take these things very seriously,” Notovny said. “But from what we can tell right now it shouldn’t impact the season.”
The weather also appears to be cooperating, with the National Weather Service forecasting nothing more than a few elevated swells in the days ahead.
“It’s all great news for the crabbers,” Dixon said. “Everything appears to be falling into place very nicely.”