This fishing gear can help save whales. What will it take for fishermen to use it?
Fishing boats would normally still be unloading Dungeness crabs at San Francisco's fisherman's wharf in May. This year, the docks were quiet, except for one berth.
"We're the only boat right now," says Brand Little, standing next to a large tank of bright red crabs on the deck of his boat, the Pale Horse.
State regulators closed the Dungeness season two months early this year, due to the arrival of humpback whales in the area. On both the East and West Coasts, crab and lobster fishermen are seeing their fishing seasons shrink over concerns that whales are getting entangled in the long ropes attached to their gear, accidents that often end up injuring or killing the animals.
But Little is still fishing, because he's trying out a system that many hope will be a technological fix to the problem: "pop-up" fishing gear.
Normally, crabs and lobster traps sit on the bottom of the ocean and are tethered to the surface by a rope that can stretch hundreds of feet. Pop-up fishing gear, also known as on-demand or ropeless gear,
