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When Whale Food Moves: Climate Change, Crab Traps, and Pop-Up Gear · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  In 2014, a huge patch of unusually warm water settled off the west coast
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  of North America. Scientists nicknamed it the blob.
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  The cold, rich water that normally spreads far offshore shrank to a thin strip along
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  the coast, and every hungry animal followed it.
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  Humpbacks moved into the same waters where crabbers had set thousands of traps,
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  each one tied to a rope Running up to the surface.
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  And the result of that was that there were crab traps that were left without ropes
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  at all. And we're gonna talk about why that happened and what the cost
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  is of that happening on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
• 0:30
  Welcome back. I'm your host, Andrew Loon,
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  marine biologist and science communicator,
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  here to talk to you about everything that has to do with ocean news,
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  ocean conservation, ocean science.
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  And today and this week, we are talking about how whales move through the water.
• 0:44
  earlier this week.
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  We had an interview with Ashley Blauwass,
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  who talked about lunch feeding and blue whales and and baleen whales.
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  And then we also talked on two episodes ago about like the that actual lunch feeding
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  and what it takes, the energy it takes.
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  Then we talked yesterday about the diving and the diving response.
• 1:00
  And we learned how like giant whales,
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  live their and dies by the finding the densest patches of food,
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  and how it finds it and what physiological responses it takes to.
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  Do that, whether they're diving,
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  whether they're searching fruit or they're lunging.
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  But the thing is, what we don't talk a lot about on this podcast,
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  or what we don't really hear a lot about in mainstream media,
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  is that these patches of food move.
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  And they move with circulation,
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  they move with differences in heat or differences in temperature.
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  And that matters in this episode because that's what we're going to be focusing on.
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  climate change can feel more about
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  weather news.
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  And a lot of people don't realize that climate change is ocean change,
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  And when you have climate, it's kind of out of your hands when
• 1:42
  you talk about climate change.
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  it's it's big, it's distant, it's it's hard to kind of get your head around.
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  But it gets real when you start tracing a straight line from warmer waters
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  to a specific whale in a specific rope.
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  And and the episode today traces that line.
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  then it's gonna show you what one coastline did about it.
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  Now, I've covered fisheries and whales on the show for years.
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  And this is one of those rare stories where fishermen,
• 2:06
  scientists, and conservation groups ended up building that that fix together.
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  Lunch feeding whales can't graze on scattered food.
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  They need the dense swarms of krill or tight schools of small fish like anchovy.
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  Off California, that food usually sits along a wide band of cold,
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  nutrient-rich waters, fed by upwelling,
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  which is deep water rising to the surface.
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  When that band shifts or shrinks,
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  that the whales will follow it.
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  They shift with it. They have no choice.
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  A whale that stays put in an empty water will starve.
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  Now, wherever the food goes, the whales go.
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  between 2014 and 2016, a marine heat wave spread across the Northeast Pacific.
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  surface water off the West Coast food-rich zone into a narrow strip.
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  ~
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  right along the coast. Scientists call that habitat compression.
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  and Jared Santora, a NOAA and UC Santa Cruz researcher who led the study
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  on what happened next, put it predators that are normally spread
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  out offshore are all moved in shore because that's where the food was.
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  Humpback whales switched from eating krill to eating anchovy and anchovy were close
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  to shore.
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  So close to shore is where the Dungeness Crab Fishery works.
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  Each crab trap sits on the bottom,
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  It ties to a rope that runs up to a buoy at the surface.
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  Thousands of these traps means thousands of vertical ropes hanging through exactly
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  the water the whales had just moved into.
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  And they can't see these ropes,
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  these whales. They can't move out of the way because there's so many
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  of them and They're narrow and they're almost transparent to them.
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  And there was a second blow. warm water fed a massive bloom of toxic algae,
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  which made crabs unsafe to eat.
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  The crab season was delayed until late March 2016.
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  So the busiest stretch of crab fishing landed in spring,
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  right when the humpbacks arrived to feed.
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  So the before the heat wave, about 10 whales a year were confirmed entangled
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  off the west coast. In 2015, there were
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  53
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  And in twenty sixteen there were fifty five.
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  Nobody in that story did anything new or reckless.
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  It's just the ocean moved, the whales,
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  and the ropes were just already there as part of what they do.
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  It's very similar to what happened in the Gulf of St.
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  Lawrence with the North Atlantic right whale when the whales moved up into
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  the Gulf of St. Lawrence. And that's what makes this a climate story.
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  normal fishing became dangerous because the map underneath it changed.
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  The whales started to move to find their food.
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  So what do you do when the danger moves around every year?
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  California wanted to find that answer.
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  They set up a working group of crab fishermen,
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  state managers, scientists, and conservation.
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  You know, they built a system called the Risk Assessment and Mitigation Program
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  or RAM.
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  it watches whale sightings, ocean conditions,
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  and entanglement reports and lets the state shorten the season,
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  close zones, or limit the fishing depth when the risk climbs.
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  Now those closures protect whales but they also cause crabbers months of fishing.
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  So spring closures became common and unfortunately the fleet felt it.
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  but what if you can keep fishing and take the rope out of the water?
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  This led to something that is pretty much used all around the world now.
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  And it's it's called pop-up gear.
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  Now I want you to imagine a crab trap sitting on the seafloor with no rope going up,
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  Its line and buoy are packed down on the bottom with it.
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  And when the fisherman comes back to grab the trap,
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  they send a signal from the boat.
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  That trap releases its buoy and the line floats up,
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  and the trap gets hauled in.
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  like the any like any other trap.
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  And that's pop-up gear. Sometimes called ropeless or on demand gear.
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  between halls, there's nothing hanging in the water for a whale to swim into.
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  So it can't get caught in its fins.
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  Well these whales will will swim around and if they get caught in the line
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  it goes into their pectoral fins right where it meets their body.
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  That starts to dig into them and they're not only are they dragging
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  the the crab traps so they disappear and it slows down the whale
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  But it also cuts into the whale.
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  They can get infections. They can die from those infections.
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  So with these ropeless traps, that doesn't happen and in the spring of 2025,
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  California crabbers tested it during the season when traditional gear
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  was shut down to protect the whales.
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  12 crabbers set 1,163 strings of pop-up traps,
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  and hauled more than 25,000 traps.
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  the gear.
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  Came up on a signal 98% of the time,
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  and only 0.2% of the gear was lost.
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  And the traps landed more than 217,000 pounds of crab,
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  worth about $1.4 million during the months they would normally have sat at the dock.
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  Just before Christmas 2025, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife made
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  it official. Pop-up gear was approved for commercial dungen fishing during spring
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  closures from April 1st to July 15th.
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  Weeks later, when the state closed parts of the central coast
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  to traditional traps because of whales,
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  Crabbers in those zones could keep fishing with the pop-up gear.
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  and the department's director,
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  Megan Hurdle, said pop-up fishing gear will allow one of California's most iconic
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  fisheries to continue. Dungeon's crab will still be brought to market while whales
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  and sea turtles are protected from entanglement.
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  One commercial crabber, Brad Little,
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  called it excellent news for California's commercial crab fishery.
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  Now, these whales remain protected,
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  crabbers, continue working, and the crab gets put on the table.
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  Nobody had to lose. Because the thing is,
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  is like the ocean keeps moving.
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  In 2024, entanglements jumped again.
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  31 humpbacks confirmed off the West Coast,
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  double the year before.
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  Nine of those were near Monterey in September and October,
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  linked once again to whales crowding inshore after dense prey moved.
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  Pop-up gear is new, so it costs money to switch.
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  And it's a significant investment for a lot of fishers.
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  And it only covers part of the season so far.
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  So plenty of rope is still in the water.
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  And that's why people were so important as part of an early warning system
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  on the water. So if you see a whale tangled in rope or gear,
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  report it right away to your local stranding or entanglement hotline
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  and stay with it at a safe distance if you can.
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  Never try to cut or free yourself.
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  There are people, unfortunately,
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  who have passed away trying to rescue whales.
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  And you've seen probably people jump on whales to try and rescue it.
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  These whales dive down and you're hooked on that line and you can't get off.
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  You're going down with it. You cannot go to a heartbeat of two beats per minute,
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  and you'll end up passing away as well,
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  which we don't want to see. So be safe,
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  keep your distance, try and follow as far as you can and give
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  the entanglement networks as much information as you can.
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  And also look up your local hotline now and save it into your phone before
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  you head out on the water.
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  And the numbers for the US and Canada will be in the show notes.
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  Now Nintango whale is still diving,
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  It's still trying to feed. It's burning oxygen and energy it can't spare.
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  So trained, so trained teams can free it.
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  They just need to know where it is.
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  on spring morning off the central California coast,
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  you can see humpbacks lunging through schools of anchovies.
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  there could be a crab boat working nearby,
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  and on the surface, no buoys, no ropes,
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  just a signal sent, a buoy popping up And a trap coming home full.
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  The food will keep moving, with clear water,
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  the whales can follow it safely.
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  And that's important to make sure that these whales continue to
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  feed.
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  It's important for these fishers to continue to fish.
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  And it's important that we all live harmoniously and change with the times
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  and adapt with the times. this California example was a great example
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  of showing how things change and how people can continue to innovate
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  and adapt to these different situations.
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  Climate change is there's nothing really we can do about it individually,
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  other than governments can continue to try and reduce fossil fuel.
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  emissions probably faster than they should,
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  but we can still do something here and adapt to these types of of situations.
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  And that's it for today's episode.
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  If you have a question or comment about this episode,
• 9:33
  please let me know. if you're listening to this on Spotify,
• 9:35
  you can comment on the episode in the comment section.
• 9:38
  If you're listening to this on your regular podcast app,
• 9:40
  you can connect with me on my socials and
• 9:42
  My my socials are in the show notes.
• 9:44
  I'll be starting a YouTube channel for this soon.
• 9:46
  So don't forget to check out YouTube,
• 9:48
  subscribe, and you can see some of the graphics that we put up.
• 9:51
  Same information that you're listening to now,
• 9:53
  but it's just more visual. So I want to thank you so much for joining
• 9:55
  me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
• 9:58
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day.
• 10:00
  Next time we're gonna be talking about the biggest hazard in a whale's path
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  and the simple change that cuts the danger in half.
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  Enjoy your day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.
• 10:08
  And happy conservation.