A state official said Oregon is trying to strike a balance between recovery of whale populations and having a thriving Dungeness crab fishery.
SALEM, Ore. — Oregon has extended rules restricting the state’s lucrative Dungeness crab fishery in order to protect humpback whales from becoming entangled in ropes attached to crab traps, the state’s fish and wildlife department has announced.
Humpbacks, which migrate off Oregon’s coast, and other whales can get caught in the vertical ropes connected to the heavy traps and drag them around for months, leaving the mammals injured, starved or so exhausted that they can drown. Oregon’s Dungeness crab fishery is one of the
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