Staff outline Puget Sound crab and shrimp policy updates, sampling results and new electronic reporting rollouts

Agency scientists and managers told the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission’s Fish Committee on May 14 that longstanding Puget Sound shellfish policies are generally performing but face local abundance declines that have forced conservation closures and adaptive management.

Aaron Duflo, who leads the Puget Sound Shellfish team, said the crab policy (last updated in 2010) uses a ‘‘3‑S’’ framework — size, season and sex — and divides Puget Sound into seven management regions with different commercial and recreational priorities. He described the base recreational season (July through Labor Day) and a defined winter season (October–December), as well as a 5‑crab daily bag limit and requirements for catch reporting and licensing.

Caitlin Bosley, leader of the crustacean unit, described the agency’s sampling programs that feed management decisions. ‘‘Our samplers saw over 25,000 crabs in possession, and they were able to sample over 10,000 of those,’’ she said, summarizing several years of dockside creel interviews and preseason/postseason test fisheries conducted with tribal co‑managers. Bosley said the data collected — catch per unit effort (CPUE), bycatch, carapace widths and shell condition — are used to estimate abundance and compliance and to inform the annual regional management plans.

Staff emphasized differences between crab and shrimp data streams. For crab, the agency relies on catch record cards (CRC) that historically returned about 43–50 percent of cards; the department applies bias‑correction using randomized telephone surveys of nonrespondents to estimate unreported recreational catch. For shrimp, staff said managers use intensive creel sampling and aerial overflights to estimate effort because shrimp openings are often short and punctuated.

On enforcement and compliance, Duflo said the CRC program carries a nonreporting surcharge: ‘‘If somebody does not return their summer or winter card prior to purchasing next year’s license, they would have an added $10 surcharge on that license sale.’’ He and Bosley said the new electronic catch record card (ECRC) option — scheduled to open in early July for Dungeness crab — is expected to reduce manual entry workload and improve timeliness; staff reported roughly 27 percent of recent crab license sales were being made electronically and that about 20–27 percent of crab cards were already electronic in recent checks.

Commercial fishery details discussed included the limited‑entry structure (a capped number of commercial licenses), pot limits and electronic fish‑ticket requirements for landings. Presenters said the commercial fishery’s ex‑vessel value has risen over time even without higher harvest pounds, reflecting market prices for live Puget Sound crab.

Commissioners pressed staff on whether low CRC return rates could materially bias estimates of recreational harvest. Bosley and Duflo explained the bias‑correction survey approach and the agency’s plans to expand sampling coverage next year by deploying more creel samplers to additional marine areas.

Why it matters: the briefings tied monitoring, enforcement and reporting improvements to the commission’s ability to set seasons and quotas that meet conservation objectives while providing harvest opportunity. The committee signaled interest in monitoring how ECRC adoption changes the timeliness and accuracy of recreational harvest estimates.

The committee held questions to keep the meeting on schedule and moved on to the North Of Falcon agenda item after the briefing.