Bay Area Crab Season Ends Early for Whale Safety

0:00It's April 17th. Welcome to California News Today, powered by AI. State officials just dropped the word that the Bay Area's commercial crapsies in in Zone 3 wraps up on April 30th to keep homebag whales. Save from getting tangled in those vertical lines. That's the stretch from the Sonoma Mendocino County line down to Pigeon Point near Pescadero. Cravers in San Francisco and Half Moon Bay got about two weeks to pull in their last halls. Meanwhile, starting at 7am on May 7th, folks with experimental permits can switch to whale-safe pop-up gear in that same zone. It keeps the ropes and buoys stashed on the seafloor until an acoustic signal pops everything up. This move hits Cravers hard after a season that kicked off late on January 5th, 2026, with a 40% cut in traps to dodge whale. Trouble Since 2015, delays have plagued almost every dungeonous crab run around here. Thanks to entanglements and Demoic acid-tainting the catch, pop-up gear proved its worth last

1:00year. When 19 fishermen tested it during closures, they hit a 98% success rate and hauled in. $1.5 million worth of crab per oceana. With whales still migrating thick, expect more tweaks as the story keeps unfolding. Cravers adapting, conservation pushing forward.