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Northern California Week-Long Crab Strike Comes To An End

HUMBOLDT COUNTY (CBS SF) -- Good news for crab lovers: the strike is over!

The Bodega Bay skippers say the settled price for crab is $2.88 per pound.

After the storm passes, boats will be out searching for crab along the entire West Coast.

The strike began last Friday and extended from Canada to Half Moon Bay.

It stemmed from a price dispute between Northern California crabbers and Pacific Seafood Group, which the crabbers accused of trying to reduce a negotiated price of $3 a pound.

Typically the price for crab is negotiated at the start of the season in November or December. Crabbers in the Eureka area were getting $3 per pound, but Pacific Seafood unilaterally attempted to lower the prices it was paying to $2.75 per pound, according to Humboldt Fishermen's Marketing Association vice president Ken Bates.

In all, nearly 1,200 fishing crews stopped working, significantly limiting the west coast crab supply.

Pacific Seafood general counsel Dan Occhipinti said in a statement earlier this week, "Pacific Seafood is just one of many buyers along the coast. Along with harvesters, processors, grocers and restaurants, we are all in this together, and everyone has to decide what they think the market will support."

The Humboldt association said crab fishers and their families expressed concerned that the price reduction could have depressed prices to fishermen for years to come.

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