The ocean commercial Dungeness crab season will remain closed until at least Jan. 15, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Thursday.
The third round of pre-season testing showed crabs still remain too low in meat yield on the southern and northern coasts, the agency said in a news release. Elevated domoic acid is still detected in some crab guts.
Additional crab meat yield and biotoxin testing will occur in the coming weeks. Results help determine which parts of Oregon could open Jan. 15 or be further delayed.
State regulations prohibit the season from opening any earlier than Dec. 1. That date was officially delayed until Dec. 15 after the first rounds of testing, then to Dec. 31 after the second round.
ODFW said that Oregon’s ocean commercial Dungeness crab season can be delayed so consumers get a high-quality product and crabs are not wasted.
The state tests crabs out of Oregon’s six major crabbing ports in partnership with the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, Oregon Department of Agriculture, and the commercial Dungeness crab industry.
In the past decade, on-time season openings have been the exception, not the rule. Pre-season testing of acid levels and meat yields have prevented the season opening on the first potential start date of Dec. 1 in seven of the past eight years. The 2021 season opened Dec. 1, but the 2020 season opened on Dec. 16 from Manzanita south and Feb. 15 from Manzanita north, and in 2019 it opened on Dec. 31.
