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"California's crab fishing season continues to be delayed.The season has been delayed about two months already.Initially, it was believed that the algae bloom creating a toxic acid was contaminating the crab would pass.Fishermen were keeping their fingers crossed in hope that the season would open up in time for the holidays, but that was not the case.On Sunday, a University of California-Santa Cruz professor shared the latest research with the public at the Seymour Center explaining why crab still can't be eaten.\"The best way I can describe it is like being a 10-year-old kid waiting for Christmas as somebody tells you you may not have Christmas this year,\" said Andy Guiliano, a crab fisherman from the Bay Area who drove down to Santa Cruz to learn more about the problem affecting his business.Testing throughout the holidays showed that crabs along the California coast were getting more toxic even though the algae bloom is gone.\u00A0\"We're pretty sure that's because the algae sink down to the sea floor and the dead anchovies sink down to the sea floor, and the crab are down there eating that,\" Professor Raphael Kudela said. \"So even though the bloom is gone, the toxin isn't gone and it could be there for months after the bloom dissipates.\"The most recent tests from the end of December show that crabs in the Monterey Bay are clean, however fishermen don't have the greenlight yet.\"Traditionally California has regulated by opening and closing the whole state at the same time,\" Kudela said. \"This year they are trying really hard to open where they can, but they have to be really careful because the last thing they want is to say go ahead and harvest crab, and then somebody gets sick.\"Kudela expects all grabs to be safe to fish by the end of January, but the damage has been done to the fishing industry.A silver lining is that scientists have been able to gather data that helps them understand how this happened.\"One of the really exciting things is we've gotten to the point where we have kind of the equivalent of a weather model for the ocean and we can predict three days out where we expect these toxic blooms,\" Kudela said. \"That's actually live now being transferred over to the federal government.\"While test results show things are looking up, the unprecedented algae bloom has scientists looking at other areas like lakes and ponds where they have found similarly toxic algae.The concern now is that the El Ni\u00F1o storms will flush out those areas, sending more contaminants into the ocean. It is something they are continuing to monitor and prevent."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.ksbw.com/article/local-crab-businesses-feeling-impact-due-to-contamination-threat/1058595>