When Whale Food Moves: Climate Change, Crab Traps, and Pop-Up Gear

0:00 In 2014, a huge patch of unusually warm water settled off the west coast of North America. Scientists nicknamed it the blob. The cold, rich water that normally spreads far offshore shrank to a thin strip along the coast, and every hungry animal followed it. Humpbacks moved into the same waters where crabbers had set thousands of traps, each one tied to a rope Running up to the surface. And the result of that was that there were crab traps that were left without ropes at all. And we're gonna talk about why that happened and what the cost is of that happening on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Welcome back. I'm your host, Andrew Loon, marine biologist and science communicator, here to talk to you about everything that has to do with ocean news, ocean conservation, ocean science. And today and this week, we are talking about how whales move through the water.

0:44 earlier this week. We had an interview with Ashley Blauwass, who talked about lunch feeding and blue whales and and baleen whales. And then we also talked on two episodes ago about like the that actual lunch feeding and what it takes, the energy it takes. Then we talked yesterday about the diving and the diving response. And we learned how like giant whales, live their and dies by the finding the densest patches of food, and how it finds it and what physiological responses it takes to. Do that, whether they're diving, whether they're searching fruit or they're lunging. But the thing is, what we don't talk a lot about on this podcast, or what we don't really hear a lot about in mainstream media, is that these patches of food move. And they move with circulation, they move with differences in heat or differences in temperature.

1:27 And that matters in this episode because that's what we're going to be focusing on. climate change can feel more about weather news. And a lot of people don't realize that climate change is ocean change, And when you have climate, it's kind of out of your hands when you talk about climate change. it's it's big, it's distant, it's it's hard to kind of get your head around. But it gets real when you start tracing a straight line from warmer waters to a specific whale in a specific rope. And and the episode today traces that line. then it's gonna show you what one coastline did about it. Now, I've covered fisheries and whales on the show for years. And this is one of those rare stories where fishermen, scientists, and conservation groups ended up building that that fix together.

2:09 Lunch feeding whales can't graze on scattered food. They need the dense swarms of krill or tight schools of small fish like anchovy. Off California, that food usually sits along a wide band of cold, nutrient-rich waters, fed by upwelling, which is deep water rising to the surface. When that band shifts or shrinks, that the whales will follow it. They shift with it. They have no choice. A whale that stays put in an empty water will starve. Now, wherever the food goes, the whales go. between 2014 and 2016, a marine heat wave spread across the Northeast Pacific. surface water off the West Coast food-rich zone into a narrow strip. ~ right along the coast. Scientists call that habitat compression.

2:56 and Jared Santora, a NOAA and UC Santa Cruz researcher who led the study on what happened next, put it predators that are normally spread out offshore are all moved in shore because that's where the food was. Humpback whales switched from eating krill to eating anchovy and anchovy were close to shore. So close to shore is where the Dungeness Crab Fishery works. Each crab trap sits on the bottom, It ties to a rope that runs up to a buoy at the surface. Thousands of these traps means thousands of vertical ropes hanging through exactly the water the whales had just moved into. And they can't see these ropes, these whales. They can't move out of the way because there's so many of them and They're narrow and they're almost transparent to them.

3:36 And there was a second blow. warm water fed a massive bloom of toxic algae, which made crabs unsafe to eat. The crab season was delayed until late March 2016. So the busiest stretch of crab fishing landed in spring, right when the humpbacks arrived to feed. So the before the heat wave, about 10 whales a year were confirmed entangled off the west coast. In 2015, there were 53 And in twenty sixteen there were fifty five. Nobody in that story did anything new or reckless. It's just the ocean moved, the whales, and the ropes were just already there as part of what they do. It's very similar to what happened in the Gulf of St. Lawrence with the North Atlantic right whale when the whales moved up into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. And that's what makes this a climate story.

4:20 normal fishing became dangerous because the map underneath it changed. The whales started to move to find their food. So what do you do when the danger moves around every year? California wanted to find that answer. They set up a working group of crab fishermen, state managers, scientists, and conservation. You know, they built a system called the Risk Assessment and Mitigation Program or RAM. it watches whale sightings, ocean conditions, and entanglement reports and lets the state shorten the season, close zones, or limit the fishing depth when the risk climbs. Now those closures protect whales but they also cause crabbers months of fishing. So spring closures became common and unfortunately the fleet felt it. but what if you can keep fishing and take the rope out of the water? This led to something that is pretty much used all around the world now.

5:04 And it's it's called pop-up gear. Now I want you to imagine a crab trap sitting on the seafloor with no rope going up, Its line and buoy are packed down on the bottom with it. And when the fisherman comes back to grab the trap, they send a signal from the boat. That trap releases its buoy and the line floats up, and the trap gets hauled in. like the any like any other trap. And that's pop-up gear. Sometimes called ropeless or on demand gear. between halls, there's nothing hanging in the water for a whale to swim into. So it can't get caught in its fins. Well these whales will will swim around and if they get caught in the line it goes into their pectoral fins right where it meets their body. That starts to dig into them and they're not only are they dragging the the crab traps so they disappear and it slows down the whale But it also cuts into the whale.

5:51 They can get infections. They can die from those infections. So with these ropeless traps, that doesn't happen and in the spring of 2025, California crabbers tested it during the season when traditional gear was shut down to protect the whales. 12 crabbers set 1,163 strings of pop-up traps, and hauled more than 25,000 traps. the gear. Came up on a signal 98% of the time, and only 0.2% of the gear was lost. And the traps landed more than 217,000 pounds of crab, worth about $1.4 million during the months they would normally have sat at the dock. Just before Christmas 2025, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife made it official. Pop-up gear was approved for commercial dungen fishing during spring closures from April 1st to July 15th.

6:39 Weeks later, when the state closed parts of the central coast to traditional traps because of whales, Crabbers in those zones could keep fishing with the pop-up gear. and the department's director, Megan Hurdle, said pop-up fishing gear will allow one of California's most iconic fisheries to continue. Dungeon's crab will still be brought to market while whales and sea turtles are protected from entanglement. One commercial crabber, Brad Little, called it excellent news for California's commercial crab fishery. Now, these whales remain protected, crabbers, continue working, and the crab gets put on the table. Nobody had to lose. Because the thing is, is like the ocean keeps moving. In 2024, entanglements jumped again. 31 humpbacks confirmed off the West Coast, double the year before. Nine of those were near Monterey in September and October, linked once again to whales crowding inshore after dense prey moved.

7:26 Pop-up gear is new, so it costs money to switch. And it's a significant investment for a lot of fishers. And it only covers part of the season so far. So plenty of rope is still in the water. And that's why people were so important as part of an early warning system on the water. So if you see a whale tangled in rope or gear, report it right away to your local stranding or entanglement hotline and stay with it at a safe distance if you can. Never try to cut or free yourself. There are people, unfortunately, who have passed away trying to rescue whales. And you've seen probably people jump on whales to try and rescue it. These whales dive down and you're hooked on that line and you can't get off. You're going down with it. You cannot go to a heartbeat of two beats per minute, and you'll end up passing away as well, which we don't want to see. So be safe, keep your distance, try and follow as far as you can and give the entanglement networks as much information as you can.

8:16 And also look up your local hotline now and save it into your phone before you head out on the water. And the numbers for the US and Canada will be in the show notes. Now Nintango whale is still diving, It's still trying to feed. It's burning oxygen and energy it can't spare. So trained, so trained teams can free it. They just need to know where it is. on spring morning off the central California coast, you can see humpbacks lunging through schools of anchovies. there could be a crab boat working nearby, and on the surface, no buoys, no ropes, just a signal sent, a buoy popping up And a trap coming home full. The food will keep moving, with clear water, the whales can follow it safely. And that's important to make sure that these whales continue to feed.

9:00 It's important for these fishers to continue to fish. And it's important that we all live harmoniously and change with the times and adapt with the times. this California example was a great example of showing how things change and how people can continue to innovate and adapt to these different situations. Climate change is there's nothing really we can do about it individually, other than governments can continue to try and reduce fossil fuel. emissions probably faster than they should, but we can still do something here and adapt to these types of of situations. And that's it for today's episode. If you have a question or comment about this episode, please let me know. if you're listening to this on Spotify, you can comment on the episode in the comment section. If you're listening to this on your regular podcast app, you can connect with me on my socials and My my socials are in the show notes.

9:44 I'll be starting a YouTube channel for this soon. So don't forget to check out YouTube, subscribe, and you can see some of the graphics that we put up. Same information that you're listening to now, but it's just more visual. So I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. Next time we're gonna be talking about the biggest hazard in a whale's path and the simple change that cuts the danger in half. Enjoy your day. We'll talk to you tomorrow. And happy conservation.