California Indefinitely Delays Start to Commercial Dungeness Fishery for High Levels of Domoic Acid  On Friday, California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced an indefinite delay to the commercial Dungeness crab season originally scheduled to commence on November 15. The decision came just days after the recreational season was also put on hold. The closures are the result of severely high levels of the domoic acid biotoxin detected in the fishery that have made the crabs unsafe for human consumption. “Crab is an important part of California’s culture and economy, and I did not make this decision lightly,” said CDFW Director Charlton H. Bonham. “But doing everything we can to limit the risk to public health has to take precedence.” The indefinite closure jeopardizes the industry's important holiday sales period. President Obama signed the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Enforcement Act, making the US among 13 nations to ratify the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA). In addition to the PSMA, the legislation includes a number of provisions preventing illegally harvested fish from entering the US market and supports efforts to achieve sustainable fisheries around the world. In other news we run a column by John Sackton originally published by Progressive Grocer last week. Sackton writes of the scientific unanimity that recent underwater surveys of the Bering Sea Canyons produced for the NPMC in their ruling that federal marine protections were not needed for the area. “The canyon survey and the definitive scientific results are a major victory for those who want to preserve consumer access to sustainable US fisheries for the low-carbon, high value, healthy and environmentally friendly protein they produce,” said Sackton. Finally, Alaska’s popular January Tanner--or Bairdi--crab fishery has been called off for the third year running. There were expectations for the 2016 fishery to yield a sizeable crab stock. However, surveys of the region that included Kodiak, Chignik and the southern Alaska Peninsula, showed this just did not happen. “We’re seeing continued recruitment into the fishery, meaning juvenile and small crab generations are being spun off every year,” said the ADF&G biologist Mark Stichert. “We don’t completely understand why those crab aren’t maturing through the population to get to the legal size.”